Our  Fathers  Book  ■ 

OR  THE  DIVINE  ORIGIN  AND 

AUTHORITY  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


Israel  P.  Warren,  D.D. 


■ 


"J   MAR  84  T    1 

Section  *.yy.feO 
No,.„ 


OUR  FATHER'S  BOOK: 


OR,  THE 


DIVINE  ORIGIN  AND  AUTHORITY 


OF 


THE  BIBLE. 


BY 

ISRAEL  p/ WARREN,  D.D. 


BOSTON: 

(Congregational  S&im&agsScIjaol  antr  lluftltsfjtng  &octetg. 

CONGREGATIONAL  HOUSE. 


Copyright,  by 
Congregational  S.  S.  and  Publishing  Society, 

1885. 


STEREOTYPED   BY 

C.  J.  Peters  and  Son,  Boston. 


MAR  24 
\i~* ■ 


PEEFACB. 


The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  help  common 
readers,  especially  among  the  young,  to  perceive 
and  to  feel  the  Divine  character  of  the  Bible.  It 
is  not  addressed  to  scholars,  though  what  are 
supposed  to  be  the  conclusions  of  the  best  schol- 
arship have  been  carefully  consulted  in  its  pre- 
paration. Disputed  topics,  such  as  the  authorship 
of  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  like,  have  been  mostly 
avoided,  or  but  briefly  alluded  to,  as  have  also 
technical  forms  of  statement,  which  are  not  gen- 
erally well  apprehended. 

Particular  care  has  been  taken  with  the  subject 
embraced  in  Chapter  V.,  viz.,  how  the  Divine 
thought  and  will  are  to  be  discerned  in  the  words 
of  the  human  authors,  many  of  them  entirely 
unknown.  It  is  believed  that  here  is  one  of  the 
greatest  difficulties  in  securing  respect  and  obe- 
dience for  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God.     The 

3 


4  PREFACE. 

writer  has  more  than  once  been  asked  how  Psalm 
cxxxvii.  8,  9,  can  be  inspired;  or  Ecclesiastes  iii. 
17-22 ;  or  the  Song  of  Solomon ;  or  in  what  way 
these  and  many  like  passages  communicate  God's 
will  to  us.  It  is  well  known  that  they  are  the 
abiding  stock  in  trade  of  infidels  and  mockers  of 
the  Scriptures,  and  it  was  thought  that  no  better 
service  could  be  rendered  to  the  Book  than  to 
show  the  principles  upon  which  they  are  to  be 
interpreted  consistently  with  the  claim  for  them 
of  a  Divine  authority.  For  this  purpose,  one  of 
those  portions,  the  Song  of  Solomon,  usually 
acknowledged  to  be  hardest  of  all  to  explain,  has 
been  exhibited  at  greater  length  than  was  at  first 
intended.  Our  readers  will  judge  with  what 
success. 

May  the  Divine  Spirit  graciously  accept  every 
endeavor,  however  unpretending,  to  facilitate  the 
devout  acceptance  of  His  own  truth. 

Portland,  Me., 
New  Year's  Day,  1885. 


MAR2<I 
^g/calSefl 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGE 

Extent  of  the  subject 9 

Nature  of  the  reasoning  employed 10 

A  supposed  case 10 

External  evidence 11 

Internal  evidence 11 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    FORM    OF    THE   BOOK. 

Three  noticeable  peculiarities  in  it 13 

Section  1.    Variety  of  compositions 13 

That  variety  described 14 

Estimate  of  this  peculiarity 14 

1.  The  pure  didactic  method  not  always  the  best     .     .  14 

2.  Truth  most  acceptable  in  the  concrete 15 

3.  Is  most  effective  in  diversified  forms 16 

4.  It  presents  the  greatest  variety  and  abundance    .     .  1G 

5.  It  disciplines  both  the  judgment  and  the  heart    .     .  17 

6.  It  never  becomes  obsolete 18 

Section  2.    Variety  of  writers 20 

Many  persons  employed  in  its  composition 20 

1.  Amanuenses 21 

2.  Historiographers 21 

3.  Interpreters 22 

4.  Compilers 22 

Advantages  of  this  method  of  composition 24 

1.  It  brings  God  near  to  us 24 

2.  Imparts  to  the  work  a  human  interest 25 

3.  Is  most  easily  understood 27 

4.  Is  invested  with  greatest  moral  power 28 

Section  3.    Variety  in  its  grades  of  instruction 29 

The  various  ages  of  human  life 29 

5 


6  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Analogous  ages  of  the  world 31 

The  Bible  adapts  its  instructions  to  each 34 

This  method  explains  many  difficulties 34 

1.  The  earliest  teachings  about  nature  and  man  ...  34 

Of  God  the  Creator 34 

Of  the  fact  and  the  origin  of  sin 36 

2.  The  silence  of  the  Old  Testament  about  gospel  truths,  38 

3.  Earliest  imperfection  in  moral  instructions      ...  40 


CHAPTER  III. 

ITS    HISTORY. 

Significance  in  the  mode  of  a  gift 42 

Section  1.  Our  English  Bible 42 

The  translators 42 

Previous  translations 43 

The  Hebrew  and  Greek  manuscripts 44 

The  Revision  of  1881 44 

Section  2.    The  Old  Testament 46 

1.  The  formation  of  the  Canon 46 

The  Septuagint  Version 46 

Th  3  work  of  Ezra  and  his  associates 48 

The  Apocrypha 48 

2.  The  Sacred  Writers 49 

The  Pentateuch 49 

Joshua 53 

Judges  and  Ruth 53 

Samuel 54 

Kings 54 

Chronicles 55 

Ezra  and  Nehemiah 55 

Esther 55 

Job 55 

The  Psalms 55 

The  Proverbs 56 

Ecclesiastes 56 

The  Song  of  Solomon 56 

The  Prophets 56 

3.  The  Bible  in  the  time  of  Christ 57 

Section  3.    The  New  Testament 60 

Special  difficulty  of  the  subject 60 

The  first  Christian  teachings  oral 61 

Beginning  of  written  documents 62 

The  Epistle  of  James 62 

The  Gospel  of  Matthew 63 

The  Epistles  of  Paul 64 

The  Gospel  of  Luke 64 

The  Gospel  of  Mark 64 

Epistles  of  James,  Peter,  and  Jude 65 

The  Revelation 66 

The  Gospel  and  Epistles  of  John 66 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  Apocryphal  writings 66 

The  formation  of  the  Canon 67 

Spontaneous  action  of  the  churches 67 

The  accepted  books  before  a.  d.  70 68 

The  accepted  books  a.  d.  70  and  100 68 

Testimonies  between  a.  d.  100  and  150 69 

Testimonies  between  a.  p.  150  and  200 70 

Testimonies  after  a.  d.  200 72 

Fifty  copies  ordered  by  Constantine 72 

The  weight  of  these  testimonies 72 

1.  Competency  of  the  churches  to  decide    ....  73 

Extent  of  the  personal  labors  of  the  Apostles  .    .  73 

Their  writings  designed  to  be  encyclical    ....  74 

Travels  performed  for  inquiry 74 

2.  Were  under  the  greatest  motives  to  truthfulness      .  76 

Their  own  highest  hopes  involved 76 

They  incurred  social  separation  from  friends     .     .    76 
They  were  exposed  to  martyrdom 77 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ITS    DIVINE    AUTHORITY. 

Difficulty  of  the  ordinary  views  of  Inspiration 79 

Section  1.    Nature  of  Inspiration 80 

The  supposed  gift  of  a  library 80 

Would  involve  care  for  the  authorship 82 

Would  involve  oversight  of  the  selection 83 

Would  require  its  safe  transmission 83 

All  these  combined  in  the  Bible 84 

1.  It  is,  therefore,  an  Inspired  Book 85 

2.  It  is  wholly  Inspired 85 

3.  It  is  verbally  Inspired 86 

4.  Its  Inspiration  is  complete 86 

Section  2.    Proofs  of  its  Inspiration 87 

The  testimony  of  Christ 87 

Views  of  the  Jews  at  that  day 88 

Christ  educated  in  those  views 88 

Specimens  of  his  teachings 91 

The  testimony  of  the  Apostles 95 

CHAPTER  V. 

ITS    DIVINE    MEANING   DISCERNED. 

How  we  may  see  God's  Word  in  the  human  words    ....  102 

Illustration  from  the  "  Giant-Killer  " 102 

1.  In  portions  of  known  Divine  origin 103 

1.  In  God's  own  spoken  words 103 

2.  The  words  of  Christ 104 

3.  The  words  of  the  Apostles 105 

4.  The  words  of  the  Prophets 106 


8  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

2.  In  the  anonymous  portions 107 

Illustration  from  Matthew's  genealogical  record  ....  107 

Illustration  from  the  Book  of  Ruth Ill 

The  principle  applied 115 

The  Historical  Books 115 

The  Book  of  Job 117 

The  Psalms       118 

•     The  Proverbs 121 

Ecclesiastes 121 

The  Song  of  Solomon 122 

Special  application  of  the  principle  to  this  book      .  122 

The  usual  allegorical  theory 122 

The  more  literal  theory 123 

The  plan  according  to  Prof.  Ginsberg 124 

A  metrical  translation 125 

The  divine  teaching  on  the  literal  theory     .     .     .  144 

The  divine  teaching  as  an  allegory 148 


CHAPTER   VI. 

EE  CAPITULATION. 
The  Bible  is  "Our  Father's  Book" 151 


OUR   FATHER'S    BOOK. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 


The  general  subject  intended  by  the  Inspiration 
of  the  Scriptures  is  one  of  vast  extent.  It  includes 
the  origin,  composition,  structure,  authenticity, 
genuineness,  preservation,  and  authority  of  the 
Book,  or  rather  of  that  collection  of  books,  which  we 
call  the  Bible.  An  exhaustive  consideration  of 
these  would  require  another  volume  as  large  as 
itself.  As  usually  presented,  it  involves  discussions 
and  technicalities  scarcely  appreciable  by  ordinary 
readers,  and  which  do  not  seem  necessary  for  the 
purposes  now  in  view.  We  propose  to  approach 
it  in  the  simplest  manner  possible,  in  such  a  line 
of  argument  and  illustration  as  shall  be  obvious 
to  the  plain  common  sense  of  every  reader. 

This  venerated  volume,  the  Bible,  comes  to  us 
purporting  to  be  a  communication  from  heaven. 
It  is  Our  Father's  Book.  Such  is  its  claim,  and 
such  the  character  and  authority  conceded  to  it  by 
all  Christians.  What  we  wish  to  inquire  about 
now  is  the  rightfulness  of  that  claim.     And  in  so 

9 


10 


OUR   FATHERS   BOOK. 


doing,  let  us  remind  our  readers  that  it  is  not  a 
case  where  mathematical  demonstration  is  appli- 
cable. We  cannot  reason  upon  it  as  we  do  upon  a 
problem  in  geometry  or  a  question  of  arithmetic. 
It  is  rather  like  the  cases  which  are  brought  before 
our  courts  of  law,  where  facts  are  submitted  to  the 
intelligence  and  sound  judgment  of  a  jury.  The 
verdict  they  are  expected  to  render  is  not  that  of 
absolute  knowledge  or  infallible  certainty,  but 
of  what  is  true  according  to  their  best  conviction 
and  belief.  And  this  is  enough  for  all  practical 
purposes.  Property,  reputation,  liberty,  and  even 
life  itself  are  among  all  civilized  nations  made 
dependent  on  such  verdicts. 

Is  this  Bible  our  Father's  Book?  Suppose  we 
had  to  decide  a  similar  question  respecting  the 
alleged  writings  of  an  earthly  father.  Here  is  a 
volume  containing  sixty-six  letters  and  other 
documents,  long  the  cherished  possession  of  the 
family,  which  purports  to  be  a  collection  of  the 
papers  of  their  absent  father,  sent  from  time  to 
time  for  the  instruction  and  training  of  his  chil- 
dren. It  is  an  old  book  ;  it  has  been  long  in  use. 
The  children  to  whom  it  was  first  addressed  are 
all  dead.  The  paper  is  stained  by  age,  and  the 
style  is  quaint  and  old-fashioned.  And  now,  in 
the  lapse  of  time,  as  bearing  on  some  question  of 
legacy  or  transmitted  obligation,  the  question 
arises  as  to  the  genuineness  of  that  old  book. 
How  should  we  proceed  in  answering  it? 


INTRODUCTORY.  11 

Two  ways  would  be  possible.  Leaving  the  book 
itself,  we  might  go  outside  of  it,  and  seek  for  evi- 
dence there.  We  might  ask  if  there  were  those 
who  personally  knew  of  the  father's  writing,  who 
saw  him  doing  it,  or  saw  the  communications  in 
passing,  or  knew  of  their  actual  delivery  to  the 
family.  We  might  seek  for  any  who  remembered 
the  children  speaking  of  the  letters  they  had  re- 
ceived, and  what  they  did  in  obedience  to  them, 
and  what  was  said  or  done  by  the  neighbors  in 
consequence.  All  the  external  history,  not  only 
of  the  communications,  but  of  the  family,  their 
friends,  the  times  in  which  they  lived,  the  state  of 
the  country  and  the  world,  would  have  some 
bearing  on  the  subject,  and,  so  far  as  relevant, 
might  well  be  used  in  helping  to  judge  of  the 
credibility  of  the  claim  made  in  behalf  of  the 
book. 

Or  we  might  look  into  the  book  itself,  and  see 
whether  its  contents  corresponded  to  the  claim. 
Here,  if  genuine,  a  thousand  things  would  be 
found  so  corresponding.  If  not  genuine,  as  many 
would  soon  be  discovered  inconsistent  with  it. 
In  fact,  this  would  be  one  of  the  very  best  tests. 
The  outside  evidence,  from  the  lapse  of  time  or 
other  circumstances,  might  be  meager.  Witnesses 
might  be  dead,  or  their  memory  at  fault.  Corrob- 
orative facts  might  be  forgotten.  But  the  inward 
evidence  would  by  its  very  nature  be  unchange- 
able.   And  so  it  is  with  what  is  called  the  internal 


12  our  father's  book. 

evidence  of  the  Bible.  It  is  many  hundred  years 
since  its  several  portions  were  written,  and  a 
great  part  of  the  evidence  which  history  could 
once  have  afforded  has  been  lost  or  is  inaccessible. 
But  the  inward  evidence  remains.  Therefore  it 
is  that  the  Bible  itself  is  its  own  best  witness,  and 
our  most  direct  and  conclusive  method  is  to  begin 
by  opening  its  sacred  pages. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ITS  FORM. 

One  of  the  first  things  which  we  notice  when 
we  open  this  volume  is  the  peculiar  form  of  its 
contents.  A  book  of  human  instruction  would  be 
apt  to  be  a  single  treatise,  didactic  in  its  method, 
from  one  author,  and  in  one  general  style  of  state- 
ment and  illustration.  The  Bible  is  very  differ- 
ent ;  and  its  peculiarities  in  this  respect  are  worthy 
of  some  distinct  consideration.  We  mention  three  : 
variety  of  its  compositions,  variety  of  its  authors, 
and  variety  in  its  grades  of  instruction. 

Section  I. 

Variety  of  Compositions. 

Nothing  can  be  more  miscellaneous  than  these 
writings.  They  are  in  fact  a  library  rather  than 
a  volume,  as  indeed  its  name  imports,  "  Biblia 
Sacra"  the  holy  books.  Here,  for  example,  is  an 
extended  treatise  of  history,  containing  a  great  deal 
that  apparently  does  not  and  cannot  concern  man- 
kind generally,  and  describing  persons,  events,  sen- 
timents, manners,  wholly  unlike  those  of  our  time, 
and  often  repugnant  even  to  our  moral  sense. 
There  we  find  a  drama  or  dialogue,  in  which  per- 

13 


14  our  father's  book. 

sons  dispute  about  questions  in  which  none  of 
them  seem  to  be  right  or  very  well  informed. 
Next  is  an  old  law-book,  containing  a  curious 
code  of  statutes,  —  civil,  military,  religious,  —  all 
now  obsolete,  except  so  far  as  the  substance  of 
them  may  be  incorporated  in  other  legislation  of 
later  times  and  nearer  home.  Interspersed  through- 
out are  poems  and  songs,  —  here  a  pastoral,  relat- 
ing how  a  fair  young  widow  won  the  love  of  a 
wealthy  and  noble  stranger,  or  a  beautiful  queen 
saved  the  lives  of  a  whole  nation ;  there  songs 
martial,  devotional,  and  even  love  songs.  Other 
pages  disclose  collections  of  proverbs  and  pithy 
sayings  ;  others  still,  impassioned  declamations  in 
loftiest  poetry  against  prevalent  wickedness  or 
foreign  oppressions,  coupled  with  predictions  of 
coming  reforms,  and  purer  and  happier  times.  A 
second  and  later  part  of  the  volume  contains  sev- 
eral chapters  of  interesting  biography,  sketches  of 
the  origin  of  new  institutions,  and  a  collection 
of  letters  which  discuss  a  great  variety  of  ques- 
tions, both  of  belief  and  conduct,  in  relation  to 
practical  affairs. 

What  must  we  say  to  all  this  ?  Is  this  the  way 
in  which  a  parent  would  be  likely  to  instruct  his 
children  ?  Were  another  book  of  this  sort  found, 
pretending  to  be  a  volume  of  such  instructions, 
could  we  readily  accept  it,  made  up  in  this  miscel- 
laneous way,  as  being  what  it  claimed  to  be  ? 

1.   Let  us  remember,  first,  that  the  pure  didactic 


ITS  FORM.  15 

method  is  not  always  the  best  for  the  purpose  in 
view.  To  tell  a  child  incessantly,  this  is  so,  and 
that  is  so,  and  you  must  do  this,  and  you  must  do 
that,  becomes  irksome  at  last.  Conscience  itself 
becomes  blunted  under  perpetual  blows.  Many 
an  impatient  boy  has  been  driven  into  outbreaking 
misconduct  under  the  constant  nagging  of  an  in- 
judicious parent.  Somebody  has  said  that  "  Don't 
twit "  and  "  Don't  tease  "  ought  to  have  been  put 
among  the  commandments. 

2.  Moral  truth  is  never  so  acceptable  as  when 
presented  in  the  concrete,  embodied  in  the  forms 
of  actual  life.  "  Tell  me  a  'tory,  mamma,"  is  one 
of  the  very  earliest  demands  of  the  little  one,  and 
in  this  form  it  literally  drinks  in  instruction  with 
its  mother's  milk.  Nor  is  the  story  any  the  less 
palatable,  —  often  it  is  even  more  so,  —  that  it 
suddenly  discloses  at  the  end  the  little  moral  les- 
son, the  admonition,  the  counsel,  or  even  the  re- 
proof, skilfully  concealed  till  the  right  moment, 
and  then  opening  with  its  full  demand  upon  the 
conscience  and  the  heart.  And  so  it  is  that  nar- 
rative, parable,  fable,  biography,  and  history  be- 
come the  most  important  vehicles  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  mankind.  In  a  similar  way  with  the  more 
ideal  classes  of  writing,  poetry,  oratory,  the  drama, 
and  even  works  of  fiction.  What  discriminating 
parent  is  there  who,  in  providing  a  library  for  his 
library,  does  not  aim  to  place  all  these  in  it  ?  Who 
would  ever  think  of  filling  it  up  with  bare  didac- 


16  our  father's  book. 

tics,  —  sermons  and  moral  essays  and  rules  for 
holy  living  and  dying,  or  would  expect,  if  he  did, 
that  his  boys  could  be  driven  to  its  use  by  any 
other  means  than  the  rod  ? 

3.  Moral  instruction  is  infinitely  more  effective 
when  conveyed  through  these  diversified  forms 
than  it  could  be  in  any  other.  "As  in  water  face 
answereth  to  face,  so  the  heart  of  man  to  man." 
It  is  human  life,  in  all  its  outgoings  and  self-reveal- 
ings  laid  alongside  of  human  life,  that  is  the  most 
effective  of  teachers  to  the  latter.  It  is  the  charm 
and  the  power  of  all  history  and  all  biography, 
of  fable  and  speech  and  song.  This  is  what  gives 
such  force  to  the  story  of  the  Pilgrims  in  the 
Mayflower,  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  and  the 
signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  of  the 
firing  on  Fort  Sumter  and  the  fields  of  Vicksburg 
and  Gettysburg.  It  is  this  which  thrills  us  as  we 
read  the  immortal  speeches  of  Adams  upon  the 
Declaration,  of  Webster  in  reply  to  Hayne,  of 
Lincoln  at  the  Gettysburg  Cemetery,  or  hear  the 
noble  strains  of  the  Star  Spangled  Banner  and  the 
Hymn  to  America. 

4.  In  like  manner,  we  gain  instruction  in  the 
greatest  variety  and  abundance.  The  Apostle  John 
says  that  if  all  the  things  which  Jesus  did  should 
be  written  every  one,  the  world  itself  could  not 
contain  the  books.  So  if  all  the  directions  neces- 
sary to  teach  men  how  to  live  should  be  written 
out  singly  and  separately,  so  as  to  meet  the  infinite 


ITS   FORM.  17 

variety  of  conditions  attending  upon  all  human 
lives,  the  books  would  be  without  number  or  end. 
It  is  like  the  English  common  law ;  no  statute 
book  could  hold  direct  legislation  made  for  every 
actual  case  that  occurs  in  the  innumerable  trans- 
actions of  every  day  business.  If  law  is  wanted 
in  a  particular  instance,  it  is  found,  in  the  absence 
of  positive  statute,  in  the  long  record  of  prece- 
dents of  the  past;  that  is,  in  the  principles  embod- 
ied in  other  cases,  more  or  less  similar,  occurring 
throughout  the  existence  of  the  nation.  So  always, 
history,  biography,  fiction,  poetry,  and  letters, 
are  repositories  of  principles,  which  he  who  is 
honest  in  the  search  of  truth  can  discern  and  apply 
for  his  own  practical  guidance,  and  often  with  far 
greater  nicety  of  adaptation  to  his  exact  wants 
than  he  could  find  in  any  professed  treatise  of 
morals  whatsoever. 

5.  Moral  instruction  so  conveyed  is  a  discipline 
not  for  the  conscience  only,  but  for  the  judgment 
and  the  heart,  indeed,  for  the  whole  intellectual 
and  moral  nature.  Every  wise  father  knows  that 
his  child's  mind  is  not  a  mere  receptacle  into  which 
wisdom  and  virtue  are  to  be  poured,  as  water  into 
a  cistern.  Education  is  e-ducing  i.  e.,  drawing  out 
the  mind,  not  stuffing  it.  The  moral  faculty  needs 
to  be  taught  how  to  discern  for  itself  what  is  truth 
and  what  is  error,  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong. 
It  ouodit  to  know  how  to  learn  from  men's  mis- 
takes  and  follies,   and  even  sins,  as  it  certainly 


18  OUr,   FATHER  S  BOOK. 

should  from  its  own.  The  foolish  virgins  have  a 
lesson  for  us  as  well  as  the  wise.  So  the  whole 
diversified  forms  of  composition  we  have  supposed 
are  so  many  diversified  forms  of  instruction. 
They  constitute  in  the  aggregate  a  transcript  of 
human  life  as  it  is ;  of  the  great  world  in  which 
we  and  all  men,  in  their  successive  generations, 
are  to  live  and  work  out  their  moral  history  and 
destiny.  Can  anything  be  better  than  these  for 
that  training?  Instead  of  being  a  mark  of  un- 
genuineness  in  a  book  purporting  to  be  a  summary 
of  a  father's  instructions  to  his  children,  would 
they  not  be,  when  duly  and  rightly  considered, 
strong  confirmation,  not  only  of  its  claims,  but  of 
the  profound  wisdom  which  so  shaped  and  com- 
posed it  ? 

6.  Once  more,  an  instruction  book  of  this  kind 
would  never  become  obsolete.  It  would  last  as  long 
as  the  family  life  lasted  ;  nay,  it  would  serve  with 
slight  adaptations  for  all  families  and  all  time. 
And  this,  because  princijiles  are  immortal.  Laws 
change  from  age  to  age ;  an  essential  part  of  the 
business  of  every  legislature  is  repealing.  Ethical 
sayings  vary  among  different  people  and  in  different 
times.  But  the  lessons  of  history  never  grow  old; 
the  story  of  Joseph  is  as  fresh  to-day,  and  as  full  of 
counsel  and  pathos,  as  it  was  thirty-five  hundred 
years  ago.  The  Roman  poet  boasted  that  he  had  in 
his  graceful  odes  "reared  a  monument  more  lasting 
than  brass."     So  while  the  world  stands,  the  fifty- 


ITS  FORM.  19 

first  Psalm  will  be  the  vernacular  of  every  penitent 
soul  iii  tears  before  God,  as  the  twenty-third  will 
be  the  calm  thanksgiving  of  him  who  dwells  as  a 
happy  and  contented  member  of  a  flock  within  the 
care  of  his  heavenly  Shepherd. 

It  will  scarcely  be  necessary  for  us  to  apply  our 
illustration  in  detail  to  the  composite  character  of 
the  Bible.  Let  the  reader  do  it  for  himself,  and 
we  are  sure  he  will  soon  see  why  this  wonderful 
Book  has  acquired  and  retains  such  a  place  as  it 
has  in  the  estimation  of  mankind.  It  is  as  if  our 
heavenly  Father  took  each  of  us  by  the  hand  and 
led  us  through  the  long  gallery  of  human  life  and 
action  for  four  thousand  years.  He  shoivs  us  here 
what  man  has  been  and  done,  his  good  deeds  and 
his  evil  ones,  his  wisdom  and  his  folly,  his  joys 
and  his  sorrows,  while  in  the  mirror  of  the  past 
he  holds  up  to  us  the  foreshadowed  vista  of  the 
future.  All  along  this  gallery  he  talks  to  us  with 
a  Father's  ineffable  tenderness,  explaining  mistakes, 
inculcating  lessons,  and  sometimes  pointing,  even, 
without  an  added  word,  in  sad  and  significant 
silence,  to  the  false  and  wicked  and  shameful 
things  the  world  has  seen.  And  then,  at  last,  he 
opens  another  room  of  ampler  space  and  clearer 
light,  and  recounts  to  us  the  lives  and  sayings  of 
apostles  and  martyrs ;  and,  chief  among  all,  pauses 
before  One  figure,  the  Man  of  all  men,  his  own 
Son,  and  tells  us  what  He  said  and  did,  and  what 
lessons  of  more  than  human  wisdom  He  left  for 


20  our  father's  book. 

all  men  and  for  all  time.  And  shall  we  now  doubt, 
as  we  look  back  through  the  long  corridor  we  have 
traversed,  even  though  it  have  many  figures  and 
many  scenes,  and  though  the  lessons  have  been 
infinitely  varied  in  number  and  form  and  signifi- 
cance, that  it  is  a  Divine  Wisdom  which  planned 
it,  and  a  Divine  Hand  that  has  been  throughout 
our  Guide? 

Section  II. 
Variety  of  Writers. 

A  second  peculiarity  in  the  form  and  method  of 
this  book  is  that  so  many  different  persons  were 
employed  as  its  ivriters.  It  may  be  easy  to  com- 
prehend why  so  many  styles  of  composition  were 
used,  but  they  should  have  been  written,  one 
might  affirm,  by  the  Divine  Hand  directly.  In- 
stead of  that,  when  we  open  the  sacred  volume, 
we  find  almost  as  many  authors  as  books.  And 
what  adds  to  the  difficulty,  a  large  portion  of 
these  are  anonymous.  So  that  we  have  a  double 
task  set  before  our  faith,  to  accept  as  the  Word  of 
God  what,  certainly  as  they  come  to  us,  are  the 
words  of  men  —  to  a  large  extent  of  unknown 
men  —  and  to  distinguish  between  the  human  and 
divine,  so  as  to  find  the  Word  of  God  in  the  words 
of  men.  Let  us  look  at  these  difficulties  in  the 
light  of  the  illustration  we  have  already  used. 

Here,  then,  is  a  volume  —  or  rather  a  library  of 
many   volumes  —  showing    the    handwriting   and 


ITS  FORM.  21 

being  confessedly  the  work  of  many  writers.     We 
find  among  these  : 

1.  A  number  who  profess  to  have  been  aman- 
uenses, persons  who  say  that  they  were  employed 
by  the  Author  to  take  down  the  words  spoken  by 
his  lips,  the  commands,  the  promises,  the  reproofs, 
the  counsels  designed  for  the  instruction  of  the 
absent  family.  They  expressly  disclaim  any  per- 
sonal share  in  the  authorship.  Some  of  the  sayings 
they  recorded  they  did  not  themselves  understand ; 
some  were  unwelcome  utterances,  as  painful  to 
write  as  to  read.  In  all  cases  they  affirm  that  they 
wrote  just  what  was  commanded  them.  No  dis- 
cretion was  allowed  them  in  omitting  anything,  in 
modifying  any  idea,  or  softening  any  word.  We 
write,  they  say,  just  what  was  given  us  to  write  ; 
no  more,  no  less. 

2.  Another  class  wrote  historically.  They  were 
annalists,  recorders,  biographers.  Sometimes  the 
matters  of  which  they  wrote  were  within  their 
personal  knowledge  or  recollection ;  sometimes 
they  were  derived  from  the  Author  himself  in  his 
earlier  writings  or  sayings ;  sometimes  they  were 
transcripts,  more  or  less  extensive,  from  public 
archives ;  sometimes  compilations  from  other 
writers,  revised  and  edited  for  the  present  purpose. 
From  whatever  source  derived,  or  into  whatever 
form  cast,  they  were  intended  and  prepared  for  the 
use  now  designated,  viz.,  to  be  a  volume  of  in- 
structions, to  teach  in  the  way  of  history,  chronol- 


22  our  father's  book. 

ogy,  memoirs,  and  the  like,  the  family  for  whom 
this  loving  and  thoughtful  Father  is  ever  mindful, 
and  for  whose  welfare  he  is  assiduously  laboring. 

3.  A  third  class  of  writers  employed  in  the  pre- 
paration of  this  library  were  interpreters.  From 
intimate  personal  acquaintance  with  the  Father 
and  long  experience  in  his  service,  they  have  come 
to  be  very  familiar  with  his  opinions  on  all 
common  topics  and  with  his  wishes  respecting  the 
family.  They  are  employed,  therefore,  to  write 
down  those  opinions  and  wishes  in  a  detailed  way, 
on  a  variety  of  practical  subjects.  The  larger 
portion  of  these  are  in  the  form  of  letters  addressed 
in  the  father's  name  to  some  of  the  eldest  children. 
The  language  and  style  of  these  are  various,  bear- 
ing, indeed,  the  mental  peculiarities  of  the 
writers  themselves,  yet  all  agreeing  in  substance 
with  each  other,  and  with  what  is  otherwise 
known  of  him  of  whose  sentiments  and  will  they 
profess  to  be  interpreters. 

4.  Lastly,  we  find  a  class  of  writers,  if  not  so 
conspicuous,  yet  no  less  important  and  responsible 
than  the  others,  who  were  employed  as  compilers. 
For  it  being,  as  we  saw  in  the  preceding  section, 
advisable  that  the  volume  which  should  suffice  for 
the  instruction  of  a  large  and  diversified  family 
for  all  time  should  contain  a  large  and  diversified 
body  of  compositions,  it  became  a  work  requiring 
great  discretion  to  select  these.  Especially  when, 
out  of  the  abounding  materials  existing,  there  were 


ITS   FORM.  Z6 

ever  very  many  unsuitable  ones  offering  them- 
selves for  the  purpose ;  works  of  false  sentiment, 
erroneous  history,  or  in  some  of  many  ways  un- 
worthy of  the  place  they  were  intended  to  fill.  All 
who  have  to  prepare  reading  matter  for  the  public 
know  that  it  is  much  easier  to  rind  a  good  writer 
than  a  thoroughly  judicious  editor.  The  former, 
indeed,  are  those  who  win  the  honors,  whose 
names  are  emblazoned  in  public  and  enjoy  the 
popular  applause,  but  no  less  deserving  are  they 
who  have  the  gift  of  discerning  true  merit,  of  de- 
tecting the  unworthy,  and  are  wise  and  courage- 
ous enough  to  brand  with  disapproval  what  has  no 
claim  for  acceptance. 

Thus,  then,  the  Book  of  which  we  have  been 
conceiving  was  prepared.  Confessedly  the  Father 
did  not  write  it  with  his  own  hands.  He  em- 
ployed amanuenses,  narrators,  interpreters,  com- 
pilers. Sometimes  he  dictated ;  sometimes  referred 
them  to  things  formerly  said  or  done  by  him ; 
sometimes  sent  them  to  public  records  or  the 
works  of  other  authentic  writers  ;  sometimes  gave 
them  commission  to  explore  existing  literature 
and  gather  from  it  materials  suitable  for  the  pur- 
pose, to  diversify,  to  enrich,  to  give  roundness  and 
completeness  to  his  plan,  in  a  word,  to  make  up 
the  Book  as  it  is.  All  the  while  he  kept  the  over- 
sight of  the  work ;  he  appointed  the  writers, 
directed  them  what  to  do,  approved  each  particu- 
lar  part   done,    and   at   the   last,  when   all   was 


24  our  father's  book. 

completed,  formally  adopted  and  confirmed  it  as 
his  own,  declaring  it  to  be  his  book. 

Thus  there  has  come  to  us  this  divine  Book,  — 
not  so  much  a  volume  as  an  encyclopaedia,  a  li- 
brary. Is  its  high  claim  to  be  questioned  because 
of  the  way  it  was  made  up  ?  Is  He  whose  name 
and  credentials  it  bears  any  the  less  its  Author 
because  it  was  not  written,  like  the  tablets  of 
stone  given  to  Moses,  with  his  own  fingers?  Was 
the  Code  Napoleon,  that  masterpiece  of  jurispru- 
dence which  has  become  the  foundation  of  legis- 
lation in  almost  all  Europe,  though  composed  and 
compiled  through  a  period  of  years  by  a  large  body 
of  skillful  jurists,  statesmen,  and  scholars,  any  the 
less  the  enactment  of  the  great  emperor  whose 
name  it  bears  ? 

Reserving  now,  for  the  present,  the  evidence  of 
the  fact  of  such  a  Divine  adoption  of  this  work, 
and  the  methods  by  which  we  are  to  distinguish 
between  what  is  of  the  Divine  Author  and  what 
of  the  human  writer,  let  us  glance  at  some  of  the 
advantages  resulting  from  this  manner  of  prepar- 
ing the  Book. 

1.  Comprehensively,  it  brings  God  near  to  us. 
Like  the  revelation  of  the  Infinite  in  the  person 
of  Christ,  it  is  a  second  incarnation  of  the  Divine 
in  the  words  and  thoughts  of  men.  "  No  man 
hath  seen  God  at  any  time ;  the  only  begotten 
Son  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath 
declared  him."     So,  except  once  or  twice  when 


ITS   FORM.  25 

the  heavenly  voice  addressed  Jesus,  no  man,  since 
the  days  of  Sinai,  when  God  uttered  the  ten  words 
of  the  Law,  hath  heard  God  at  any  time,  and  even 
then  it  was  such  a  voice  of  awe  that  the  people 
begged  not  to  hear  it  any  more.  "  Speak  thou 
with  us,"  they  said  to  Moses,  "but  let  not  God 
speak  to  us  lest  we  die."  So,  accordingly,  he  has 
spoken  with  men  through  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
and  in  later  days  through  his  Son  and  the  apos- 
tles, using  human  language,  and  fitting  divine 
thoughts  to  human  words,  framed  after  our  own 
finite  conceptions,  and  uttered  in  our  own  familiar 
ways  by  speech  or  pen. 

2.  With  all  this,  we  have  also  the  attractions 
of  a  human  interest  thrown  over  the  divine  com- 
munication. The  heavenly  thought  comes  to  us 
borne  upon  the  sweet  sounds  of  our  mother 
tongue.  We  go  into  the  tent  life  of  the  patri- 
archs, and  hear  mothers  singing  to  their  children ; 
we  follow  the  poor  slave  boy  from  the  sheep  pas- 
tures of  Dothan  to  the  palace  of  the  Pharaohs ; 
we  bend  with  the  princess  and  her  train  over  the 
little  papyrus  cradle  on  the  brink  of  the  Nile,  and 
trace  thence  the  career  of  the  noble  youth,  the 
liberator,  law-giver,  prophet,  and  historian,  till  he 
attains  that  angel-guarded  grave  on  Mount  Nebo. 
We  hear  Deborah's  song  of  victory.  We  see  the 
pious  Hannah  giving  thanks  for  her  son,  and" 
making  yearly  the  little  coats  in  which  he  shall 
appear  before  the  Lord  in  Shiloh.     We  are  with 


26  our  father's  book. 

David  in  the  sheep  pastures;  in  his  battle  with 
the  boastful  giant ;  in  his  minstrelsy  in  the  palace 
of  Saul ;  in  his  own  accession  to  the  kingdom  ;  in 
his  honored  old  age,  and  his  peaceful  death.  We 
listen  to  the  hymns  he  sung  as  the  shepherd-boy, 
the  warrior,  the  king,  the  penitent  sinner.  We 
visit  with  u  the  queen  of  the  south  "  the  court  of 
Solomon,  and  see  all  his  glory,  and  listen  to  his 
wise  sayings  and  his  impassioned  songs.  We  are 
thrilled  with  the  lofty  utterances  of  the  prophets, 
the  grand  oratorio  of  Isaiah,  the  sublime  hymn  of 
Habakkuk.  Then  we  come  down  to  Bethlehem 
and  Nazareth,  and  read  of  that  wonderful  child 
and  his  beautiful  virgin  mother,  and  their  home 
life,  when  he  wrought  with  his  father  as  a  car- 
penter. We  follow  him  to  the  Jordan  to  be  bap- 
tized, and  to  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted,  and 
thenceforward  through  all  the  weary  way  of  toil 
and  teaching,  of  beneficence  and  suffering,  till  it 
culminates  at  Pilate's  hall  and  Calvary.  Then 
the  story  of  the  works,  the  writings  and  the 
deaths  of  apostles  and  martyrs,  and  the  glorious 
apocalyptic  vision  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  in  which 
the  long,  sad  drama  of  earth  and  time  shall  end. 
How  human  it  all  is  !  How  interesting  for  its  own 
sake  !  How  do  children  hang  delighted  over  its 
stories,  and  poets  and  artists  vie  with  each  other 
in  reproducing  their  ideals  in  numbers  and  paint- 
ing !  What  myriads,  attracted  first  by  this  human 
element,  have  been  led  at  last  to  discern  and  to 


ITS   FORM.  27 

yield   to  the  divine  which  gave   inspiration   and 
power  to  the  whole. 

3.  A  revelation  so  given  is  most  easily  understood. 
Paid  was  once  taken  up  to  Paradise,  and  heard 
things  in  the  proper  language  of  heaven  ;  but  he 
says  they  were  unspeakable,  and  such  as  none 
might  utter.  But  the  things  which  he  wrote  in 
his  earthly  letters  to  the  churches  he  had  planted 
and  suffered  for  could  both  be  spoken  and  under- 
stood. If  they  wanted  commentaries  upon  them, 
he  bade  them  take  Mm.  Be  followers  of  me  ;  walk 
as  ye  have  us  for  an  ensample.  It  was  the  divine 
brought  to  men  in  the  human,  and  this  the  human 
could  understand.  So  throughout  the  Bible.  If  you 
want  to  know  what  faith  is,  go  and  spend  a  night 
with  Abraham  when  he  is  on  that  lonely  wandering 
journey,  not  knowing  whither  he  went.  If  you 
would  see  a  real  Greatheart  escorting  his  pilgrims, 
follow  the  career  of  Moses.  If  you  want  an  ideal 
of  a  pure  home  affection,  go  and  see  the  parting 
between  Ruth  and  her  mother-in-law.  If  you  ask 
what  is  true  repentance,  go  into  David's  bed-cham- 
ber, and  listen  to  the  broken  voice  which  utters 
the  fifty-first  Psalm.  So  there  is  not  a  duty,  a 
virtue,  a  grace  of  character,  or  lofty  ideal  of  at- 
tainment, that  you  cannot  find  described  and  set 
before  you  in  living  example  here.  There  is  not 
a  fault,  a  weakness,  a  folly,  a  sin,  of  which  you 
cannot  find  both  specimen  and  warning  in  this 
Book  of  books.    There  is  not  so  knotty  a  question 


28  our  father's  book. 

of  morality,  so  difficult  a  problem  of  duty,  that 
you  cannot  find  a  thread  of  right  and  safety 
through  it.  It  is  adapted  to  every  age  and  every 
station,  the  child  and  the  sage,  the  prince  and  the 
peasant ;  it  is  a  light  that  never  goes  out,  a  foun- 
tain that  never  runs  dry. 

4.  And  hence  it  is,  finally,  that  it  is  invested 
with  a  poiver  over  mankind  which  surpasses  every 
other.  There  is  no  other  book  that  lays  hold  of 
human  hearts  as  this  does.  Coleridge  expressed 
it  in  a  word,  "  It  finds  me."  The  man  does  not 
live  who  can  go  into  his  private  chamber,  and, 
with  a  serious  mind,  open  and  read  an  hour  in 
this  book,  and  not  feel  as  if  God  had  spoken  to 
him.  Of  course,  he  may  read  to  disbelieve  and  to 
scoff,  and  he  will  hear  only  the  echo  of  his  own 
blasphemous  thoughts ;  but  let  him  read  to  hear 
its  true  utterance,  and  the  still,  small  voice  of  the 
Spirit  will  breathe  in  every  page.  The  world 
over,  to-day,  this  is  the  book  for  the  closet,  for 
the  midnight  hour,  for  solitude.  And  not  less  is 
it  the  book  of  life  and  action.  Its  principles 
underlie  every  code  of  morals  ;  its  teachings  affect 
legislation  and  all  the  intercourse  of  peoples  and 
nations.  There  is  not  another  book  so  much  read. 
There  is  none  the  copies  of  which  are  so  multi- 
plied. There  is  none  which  is  receiving  so  much 
study  and  elucidation  from  all  the  sources  of 
human  knowledge.  There  is  none  which  is  so 
fast  being   translated   into   every   language,  and 


ITS   FORM.  29 

becoming  the  universal  book  of  mankind.  It  is 
the  most  human  book  in  the  world,  touching  more 
human  beings,  and  touching  them  in  more  ways, 
than  any  other.  It  is  the  most  divine  book  in  the 
world,  speaking  and  revealing  things  transcending 
all  finite  thought.  It  is  the  most  divine  book  be- 
cause it  is  the  most  human. 

Section  III. 

Variety  in  its  Grades  of  Instruction. 

In  providing  a  book  of  instruction  for  a  family, 
which  is  to  supply  the  wants  of  all,  there  must 
evidently  be  an  adaptation  to  the  wants  of  all. 
Indeed,  in  any  such  supposed  case  we  should 
expect  to  find  indications  that,  before  the  first 
written  instruction,  there  had  been  a  period  of 
oral  teaching.  Before  the  little  ones  had  learned  to 
read,  or  had  knowledge  enough  of  themselves  and 
things  around  them  «to  make  that  method  avail- 
able, they  had  received  many  an  important  lesson. 
Home  training  begins  in  the  cradle.  Smiles  and 
frowns  are  a  significant  alphabet  there.  Baby 
talk,  that  seems  silly  to  others,  is  often  a  mother's 
wisdom  to  those  who  cannot  understand  any  other. 
So,  during  all  the  days  of  the  nursery,  the  reign  of 
the  dolls  and  the  rocking-horses,  of  dissected  alpha- 
bets and  picture  primers,  the  first  slate  and  pencil 
and  the  multiplication  table,  there  has  been,  if  the 
parents  were  wise,  a  continued  course  of  instruc- 


30  our  father's  book. 

tion  and  government  of  utmost  importance  in  its 
bearing  upon  the  character  of  the  after-life. 

After  this  come  the  schooldays,  protracted  often 
through  the  entire  minority,  till  twenty-one  or 
more.  All  this  period  is  one  peculiarly  adapted 
to  the  sort  of  instruction  we  are  contemplating. 
A  father's  or  mother's  correspondence  with  a  child 
away  from  home,  at  school  or  in  college,  is  often 
the  golden  chain  of  love  and  wisdom  that  does 
more  to  save  from  harm  and  shape  the  whole 
course  of  future  life  than  all  other  influences  com- 
bined. In  such  a  repository  of  a  father's  letters 
as  we  have  supposed,  we  should  expect  to  find  a 
large  space  filled  with  what  was  addressed  to  the 
sons  and  daughters  in  the  forming  periods  of  their 
school  life. 

At  length  youth  passes  into  manhood,  and  the 
grave  responsibilities  of  mature  age  are  to  be 
assumed.  None  so  well  knows  as  a  father  what 
need  of  wisest  counsels  then.  New  homes  are  to 
be  formed,  new  social  ties  created.  Occupations 
are  to  be  chosen,  and  principles  and  habits  adopted 
which  are  to  rule  in  business,  in  politics,  in  society, 
and  in  religion.  The  letters  of  parental  advice 
and  suggestion  show  how  warm  the  sympathy 
between  the  old  home  and  the  new,  and  in  these 
we  find  the  gravest  lessons,  the  deepest  discus- 
sions, the  wisdom  gathered  from  widest  experience 
and  observation,  fondly  bestowed  to  form  the 
model  of  a  noble  and  happy  life. 


ITS   FOBM.  31 

Of  course,  we  should  find  the  letters  addressed 
to  different  ages  corresponding  in  their  contents 
to  the  capacities  and  circumstances  of  those  for 
whom  they  were  intended.  A  letter  for  the  school- 
boy of  ten  would  be  very  unlike  that  meant  for 
the  young  man  of  twenty-one.  Its  subjects  would 
be  different,  its  style  of  composition  different,  its 
directions  as  to  conduct  and  behavior  different. 
The  evidences  of  the  father's  authorship  would  be 
as  apparent  in  the  adaptations  of  his  instructions 
to  the  varying  ages,  characters,  and  necessities  of 
Ins  children,  as  in  their  intrinsic  wisdom. 

The  circumstances  thus  supposed  are  paralleled 
throughout  in  the  Bible,  and  are,  when  duly  con- 
sidered, among  the  most  striking  evidences  that  it 
is  our  Father's  Book.  From  the  time  of  Moses, 
the  date  of  its  first  writings,  till  the  death  of  the 
apostle  John,  is  a  period  of  at  least  sixteen  hun- 
dred years,  probably  more.  Sixteen  centuries  of  a 
family  life  imply  great  variety  as  well  as  long  con- 
tinuance. Indeed,  we  have  here,  as  in  the  other 
case,  numerous  glimpses  of  a  period  of  the  world 
preceding  the  age  of  written  instruction.  When 
writing  was  invented  nobody  knows ;  what  the 
dates  of  the  earliest  sculptures  and  papyri  of 
Egypt  is  yet  undetermined.  There  was,  however, 
for  mankind  as  a  whole,  a  long  period  before  and 
immediately  after  the  deluge,  when  instruction  was 
solely  in  oral  forms.  It  was  the  period  of  univrit- 
ten  revelation,  the  intellectual  childhood  of  the 


32  our  father's  book. 

race.  What  precisely  the  contents  of  that  revela- 
tion were  it  is  impossible  now  to  say.  The  few 
hints  we  have  of  the  antediluvians  show  it  to  have 
been  exceedingly  rudimentary,  though  sufficient 
to  give  a  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong  and 
create  moral  responsibility.  After  the  flood  those 
glimpses  multiply,  and  we  have  traces  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  one  true  God,  and  the  simplest 
forms  of  worship  by  sacrifice  and  prayer,  in  the 
ancestry  of  Abram.  Thence,  through  the  patri- 
archal period  and  the  servitude  in  Egypt,  we  hear 
of  occasional  direct  communications  from  God, 
appointing  special  acts  of  duty,  and  pointing 
forward  to  better  things  to  come.  All  this  long 
duration  was  the  Avorld's  infancy,  and  it  is  in  per- 
fect analogy  with  what  we  always  find  in  family 
history,  that  there  was  then  no  written  and  per- 
manent revelation. 

From  the  time  of  Moses  to  Christ  was,  so  to 
speak,  the  school  age  of  the  world.  This  is  the 
very  designation  given  to  it  by  the  apostles.  "The 
heir,  before  he  comes  of  age,  is  under  tutors  and 
governors  appointed  by  the  father."1  "The  law 
is  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us  unto  Christ."2 
Here,  now,  we  find  a  very  different  state  of  things 
from  before.  God  reveals  himself  in  his  infinite 
personality  as  one  God,  Jehovah,  the  self-existent 
and  eternal.  He  appoints  modes  of  worship,  and 
enacts  a  complex  system  of  laws  to  regulate  the 

iGal.  4:1,  2.  2  Gal.  3:24. 


ITS  FORM.  33 

whole  religious  and  social  life.  He  says  little  of 
doctrine,  he  goes  into  no  discussions  of  principles 
or  abstract  truths.  He  commands,  "  Do  this  and 
live  ;  disobey  and  die."  It  is,  throughout,  a  peda- 
gogic system,  of  lessons  and  stints,  of  exercises 
and  tasks,  of  calisthenics  and  gymnastics,  enforced 
by  rewards  and  punishments  in  keeping  with  the 
purposes  of  a  proper  school  discipline.  And  the 
Old  Testament  is  the  record  of  it,  telling  us  how  it 
went  with  them,  how  they  obeyed  and  how  they 
sinned,  how  they  sung  and  how  they  wept,  how 
they  were  taught  by  the  wisdom  of  sages,  and 
how  reproved  and  warned  and  cheered  by  the 
messages  of  the  prophets,  until  the  time  came  for 
this  imperfect  stage  to  close,  and  the  manhood  of 
the  world  to  be  entered  on. 

And  now  a  new  revelation  adapted  to  this  new 
age.  Rites  and  ceremonies  pass  away,  and  prin- 
ciples succeed.  Love  takes  the  place  of  Law ;  Je- 
hovah is  made  known  as  the  Father,  and  instead  of 
priest  and  prophet  his  Son  comes  to  be  the  Teacher 
of  men.  It  is  true  that  the  new  lessons  are  hard 
to  learn.  Dull  ears  and  sluggish  hearts  at  first 
fail  to  comprehend  them.  And  yet  there  is  pro- 
gress. Three  and  a  half  years  the  Master  teaches 
in  person.  Then  he  appoints  apostles,  and  endues 
them  with  power  to  speak  in  his  name,  and  so  the 
New  Testament  is  filled  up  and  is  given  as 
the  finished  and  complete  instruction  book  for  the 
world  and  for  all  time. 


34  our  father's  book. 

Id  all  this,  how  perfect  the  adaptation  of  the 
means  to  the  end  in  view.  We  see  revelation 
progressive,  plastic,  snited  to  every  age  and  condi- 
tion of  those  for  whom  it  is  intended.  We  see  a 
wise  Father  sending  his  instructions  to  all  as  they 
are  able  to  comprehend  and  profit  by  them.  It  is 
one  of  the  lesser  and  perhaps  not  often  noticed 
marks  of  the  divine  wisdom  which  shines  in  this 
venerable  volume,  and  which  accredits  it  to  our 
judgments  and  hearts  as  the  Book  of  our  Father. 

But  there  are  some  special  facts  of  great  im- 
portance growing  out  of  this  adaptation  of  the  Bible 
to  the  different  ages  of  the  world,  which  need 
special  consideration. 

1.  It  accounts  very  perfectly  for  the  forms  in 
which  the  earliest  teachings  respecting  the  universe 
and  man  are  cast. 

One  of  the  first  things  that  men  needed  to  know 
was  that  there  is  one  God  who  made  the  world  and 
all  it  contains.  The  tendencies  of  all  untaught 
people  have  been  to  see  supernatural  powers  in 
the  great  forces  at  work  around  them,  in  the  sun 
and  moon  and  stars,  the  winds  and  storms  and 
seasons,  in  health  and  disease,  in  all  wonderful 
things  that  happen,  and  all  remarkable  sights  that 
are  seen.  Hence  the  origin  of  idolatry,  the  wor- 
ship of  Baal  and  Ashtoreth,  of  Zeus  and  Jupiter, 
Apollo  and  Diana,  and  the  innumerable  deities  of 
the  heathen  pantheon.  And  as  these  supposed 
powers  were  ever  acting  upon   man,  doing   him 


ITS  FORM.  35 

good  or  evil,  gratifying  or  defeating  his  desires,  so 
it  became  worship  to  the  gods  to  do  that  over 
which  they  presided,  to  please  Mars  by  righting, 
and  Bacchus  by  getting  drunk,  and  Venus  by 
debauchery,  etc.  Hence  practical  idolatry  was 
everywhere  unrestrained  vice,  and  the  orgies  of 
heathen  worship  were  too  foul  even  for  mention. 
It  was  then  a  first  requisite  for  all  true  religion  to 
know  that  there  was  one  only  God,  the  creator  of 
all  things,  and  the  author  of  all  those  forces  and 
appearances  which  mankind  in  their  ignorance  put 
in  his  place.  So  the  Bible  begins,  just  as  it  ought 
to,  by  first  teaching  this  great  foundation  fact. 

But  hoiv  does  it  teach  it?  Just  as  a  parent 
would  teach  the  same  thing  to  a  little  child.  It 
says,  first,  generally,  "  In  the  beginning  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth/'  And  then, 
holding  up  the  great  Builder  vividly  before  the 
child's  mind,  it  tells  how  he  "spoke"  and  was 
obeyed.  He  said,  "  Let  there  be  light."  He  spoke 
to  the  great  sky  above  and  said,  "  Let  there  be  a 
division  there,  so  that  the  upper  waters  (clouds) 
shall  be  separated  from  the  lower  waters "  (the 
ocean).  He  spoke  to  these  lower  waters,  and 
gathered  them  into  seas.  He  spoke  to  the  ground, 
and  made  the  grass  grow;  and  to  the  sun  and 
moon,  and  made  day  and  night ;  and  to  the  sea, 
and  made  the  fishes ;  and  to  the  earth  again,  and 
made  the  beasts.  Read  Mrs.  Barbauld's  Prose 
Hymns   for   children,  and  see  a  perfectly  corre- 


36  our  father's  book. 

sponding  way  of  teaching.  And  so  the  one  great 
truth  which  man  so  much  needed  to  know  was 
taught.  It  was  in  a  way  which  those  of  that  age, 
and  of  all  ages,  have  comprehended,  and  will  so 
long  as  the  world  stands. 

Now  we  say  it  is  one  of  the  marks  of  inspiration 
that  this  prime  fact  of  the  creation  was  taught  in 
this  way.  Suppose  the  scientific  way  had  been 
adopted  instead.  Moses  begins  with  the  primeval 
" fire-mist"  and  the  "nebular  theory."  He  goes 
on  to  tell  of  revolutions  and  condensations,  and 
internal  heat  and  external  coolings,  of  the  succes- 
sive throwings  off  of  planets  and  satellites  and 
meteoric  rings.  He  writes  of  crystallizations  and 
stratifications,  of  granite  and  gneiss  and  plumbago 
and  oolite,  of  azoic  and  protozoic  and  csenozoic 
ages,  of  evolution  and  development,  of  palseontologj' 
and  anthropology,  etc.  Can  anybody  suppose 
that  would  have  been  a  better  way?  As  well 
talk  to  a  child  of  the  solar  parallax  and  the  differ- 
ential calculus.  Nobody  in  primitive  times  could 
have  understood  a  word  of  it.  If  we  had  had  a 
book  pretending  to  be  from  God  which  exhibited 
its  first  lessons  for  mankind  after  that  sort,  that 
fact  itself  would  be  sufficient  to  brand  it  as  an 
imposture. 

So  with  another  great  first  truth,  the  fact  and 
the  origin  of  sin.  When  mere  scientists  attempt  to 
grapple  with  these  subjects,  they  find  them  among 
the   most  difficult  presented  to  human  thought. 


ITS  FORM.  37 

All  men  are  sinners,  as  everybody  knows;  but 
how  did  they  become  so  ?  What  is  the  nature, 
and  what  are  the  limits,  of  that  law  of  heredity 
which  perpetuates  in  a  child  the  character  of  his 
parents  ?  Then,  how  did  the  first  of  the  race  be- 
come sinners?  How  can  a  holy  being  be  tempted 
to  sin,  and  how  does  the  mind  act  when  it  sins  ? 
The  most  profound  treatises  that  President  Ed- 
wards, our  greatest  American  philosopher,  wrote, 
were  on  "Original  Sin,"  and  the  "Freedom  of 
the  Will."  Supposing  the  Bible  had  attempted  to 
explain  these  abstruse  matters  in  the  childhood  age 
of  the  world,  and  had  given  profound  disquisitions 
on  psychology  and  metaphysics.  What  futility 
and  folly  had  it  been,  utterly  unlike  the  wise 
methods  of  our  Father  in  heaven  ! 

Instead  of  this,  he  adopts,  as  before,  a  way  which 
even  the  child  can  understand.  He  tells  the  story 
of  the  first  innocent  pair ;  of  their  home  in  a 
beautiful  garden  where  God  used  to  come  to  con- 
verse with  them  ;  of  the  command  he  gave  to  test 
them ;  of  the  serpent  that  came  and  talked  with 
them,  and  told  lies,  and  promised  nice  things  if  they 
would  disobey  ;  and  how  they  listened  to  him  and 
ate ;  and  how  God  was  angry,  and  told  them  they 
should  not  live  in  the  garden  any  longer,  and 
how  their  tempter  should  crawl  on  his  belly  and 
eat  dust,  etc.  Now  here  we  have  the  great  truths 
which  man  needs  to  know,  the  fact  of  sin  in  the 
individual  and  the  race,  and  that  sin  as  the  fruit 


38  our  father's  book. 

of  temptation  and  the  voluntary  act  of  responsible 
moral  agents,  and  that  sinners  as  such  cannot  en- 
joy the  favor  of  God,  the  very  foundation  truths 
of  the  entire  system  of  salvation.  Whole  volumes 
of  metaphysics  are  here  contained  in  a  simple 
story  that  appeals  to  every  heart,  and  is  found 
among  the  primitive  traditions  of  every  race  of 
mankind. 

2.  In  the  same  way  is  accounted  for  the  appar- 
ent silence  of  the  Old  Testament  respecting  some 
of  the  most  important  gospel  truths.  We  instance 
three  which  may  serve  as  specimens  of  many, — 
the  Trinity,  the  Atonement,  and  a  Future  State. 
These  and  similar  doctrines  are  the  "  strong  meat 
fitted  for  full-grown  men,  who,  by  reason  of  use, 
have  their  senses  exercised."  They  have  been 
the  battle-ground  of  controversy  during  all  the 
Christian  ages.  The  last  two,  at  least,  are  such  a 
field  of  conflict  to-day.  Could  we  have  expected 
that  such  subjects  would  be  thrust  upon  the  un- 
trained and  ignorant  people  who  had  come  out 
of  the  house  of  bondage  in  Egypt  ?  And  yet 
glimpses  of  all  these  topics  were  given  from  the 
very  earliest  periods.  Suppose  a  mother,  in  her 
first  religious  lessons  in  the  nursery,  had  always 
used  the  name  of  God  in  the  plural,  teaching  her 
child  to  pray  to  "  the  Gods,"  to  love  "  the  Gods," 
that  "  the  Gods  "  would  be  pleased,  etc. ;  and  yet 
should  always  speak  of  "  the  Gods  "  as  "  He  "  or 
"  Him,"  and  moreover  should  expressly  say  that 


ITS  FORM.  39 

there  was  but  one  God.  Would  not  the  child  in- 
evitably get  at  least  the  rudiments  of  the  two 
essential  ideas  of  the  Trinity,  a  plurality  and  a 
unity.  Yet  precisely  such  is  the  Hebrew  name 
of  God — Elohim.  So  with  the  atonement ;  its  cen- 
tral conception  is  that  of  sacrifice,  which  was  in- 
stituted as  early  as  the  fall  itself.  And  as  to  a 
future  state ;  what  could  a  Jew  have  understood 
by  the  phrases,  "  he  died  and  was  gathered  unto 
his  fathers,"  "the  righteous  hath  hope  in  his 
death,"  the  disobedient  "  shall  be  cut  off  from  his 
people  ? "  Remember  that  the  eminent  boast  of 
the  Israelite  was  that  he,  as  one  of  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  was  in  covenant  with  Jehovah.  To  be 
cut  off  from  his  people  was  to  be  shut  out  of  that 
covenant,  and  be  without  hope  and  without  God. 
Thus,  it  argues  nothing  against  the  divine  origin 
of  the  Bible  that  it  does  not  at  first  reveal  in  full 
the  profound  mysteries  of  doctrine  disclosed  in  the 
New  Testament.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  precisely 
in  harmony  with  the  natural  method  of  parental 
instruction  that  it  does  not  do  that,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  gives  hints  and  outlines  of  them  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  fuller  instruction  of  the  future. 
And  this  is  precisely  the  mission  which  our  Saviour 
claimed  for  himself  as  the  great  Teacher,  "  I  came 
not  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to  fulfill"  —  i.e.,  to 
fill  up  the  outlines,  to  disclose  their  principles, 
and  teach  mankind  how  to  apply  them  to  the 
practical  conduct  of  life. 


40  our  father's  book. 

3.  In  like  manner  we  account  for  the  apparent 
imperfection  of  the  earliest  moral  instruction.  We 
can  barely  allude  to  this.  Look  at  the  first  re- 
vealed law  of  God,  the  code  which  contained  the 
entire  system  of  ethics.  It  is  called  "  The  Ten 
Words "  (Decalogue)  and  consists  of  ten  simple 
commands,  of  which  all  but  one  are  prohibitions. 
This  is  precisely  the  way  the  mother  begins  to 
legislate  for  her  child.  "  Don't."  Don't  strike  ; 
don't  quarrel ;  don't  touch  the  fire  ;  don't  use  bad 
words;  don't  do  this  or  that.  Reasons  why  are 
not  given,  or  but  sparingly ;  they  could  not  be 
understood  if  they  were.  So,  among  untaught 
people  the  standards  of  morals  are  always  low. 
It  requires  an  advanced  stage  of  cultivation  to 
comprehend  the  force  of  such  a  rule  as  Jesus 
gave,  —  the  "  Golden  Rule"  of  all  virtue,  —  or 
to  carry  it  out  into  all  its  delicate  and  far-reach- 
ing applications.  When  skeptics  sneer  at  the 
barbarity  and  coarseness  and  vices  of  the  early 
Jewish  people,  even  occasionally  outcropping  in 
such  men  as  Moses,  and  Samson,  and  David  and 
Solomon  and  Hezekiah,  they  ignore  entirely  the 
principle  we  are  contending  for.  The  best  men 
and  women  that  now  live  were  not  always  para- 
gons of  virtue  in  their  childhood. 

Our  subject  grows  upon  us  beyond  our  room ; 
but  its  leading  idea  can  easily  be  followed  out  in 
numerous  directions.  We  say  then,  generally, 
that  all  the  rudimentary  and  apparently  defect- 


ITS   FORM.  41 

ive  teachings  of  the  Old  Testament  find  here  a 
sufficient  solution.  Nay,  not  sufficient  only,  but 
natural  and  wise.  Assuming  that  the  Bible  is  a 
Father's  Book  of  instruction  to  his  children,  they 
are  just  such  imperfections  as  we  should  look  for 
in  the  earliest  lessons ;  and  are  therefore  in  them- 
selves evidence  that  were  given  by  One  who  knew 
men,  and  what  was  in  them,  and  what  was  best 
for  them,  that  they  might  be  lifted  up  gradually, 
in  the  only  successful  way  possible,  to  the  ulti- 
mate highest  plane  of  knowledge  and  virtue. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ITS   HISTORY. 

There  is  much  significance  in  the  mode  of  a 
gift.  If  it  be  one  from  a  father  to  his  children, 
that  mode  will  surely  be  worthy  of  it  and  of  him. 
An  imposture  will  be  likely  to  have  something 
doubtful  and  suspicious  in  its  history.  If  God  has 
given  us  his  book,  we  may  be  confident  that  there 
are  marks  of  his  own  wisdom  and  superintendence 
in  the  very  channels  through  which  it  came. 
How,  then,  did  we  get  our  Bible  ? 

We  begin  with  our  English  Bible,  and  trace  it 
back  through  the  translations  to  the  Hebrew  and 
Greek  manuscripts,  and  thence  through  the  for- 
mation of  the  Canon  to  the  original  writers. 

Section  I. 
Our  English  Bible. 

Two  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago,  a  company 
of  fifty  four  learned  men  were  appointed  by  the 
King  of  England  to  prepare  a  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  into  English.  They  were  supposed 
to  be  the  fittest  men  in  the  kingdom  for  that  pur- 
pose ;  University  professors,  divines  and  scholars ; 
men    of   venerable  character   and   exalted   piety. 

42 


ITS  HISTORY.  43 

Never  was  a  book  honored  with  such  a  corps  of 
translators  before.  Never  were  men  entrusted 
with  a  nobler  charge,  — to  put  what  they  believed 
to  be  God's  word  into  the  words  of  the  foremost 
Christian  nation,  and  a  language  that  was  to  be 
spoken  by  uncounted  millions  of  people  through 
all  coming  time.  The  work  was  completed  and 
published  in  1611,  and  through  innumerable  edi- 
tions, in  every  variety  of  form,  has  come  down  to 
us. 

But  whence  did  the  translators  obtain  it? 
They  had,  first,  a  succession  of  previous  transla- 
tions, which  had  from  time  to  time  been  made  by 
eminent  scholars,  and  long  hallowed  by  sacred 
use.  Two  hundred  and  thirty  years  before,  when 
the  English  language  was  forming  by  fusion  of 
the  Saxon  and  Norman  tongues,  John  Wiclif,  a 
learned  professor  at  Oxford,  with  the  help  of  the 
best  scholars  of  that  day,  first  gave  to  it  a  transla- 
tion of  the  Scriptures,  which  more  than  any  one 
thing  served  to  impart  to  that  forming  tongue  fixed- 
ness and  perpetuity,  and  was  the  basis  of  all  subse- 
quent translations.  About  one  hundred  and  forty 
years  later,  William  Tyndale,  another  Oxford 
scholar,  issued  a  new  and  improved  version  of  the 
New  Testament,  sealing  his  work  a  few  years  later 
with  his  blood,  being  burned  at  the  stake  by  Henry 
VIII.  in  1536.  From  that  date  till  the  time  of 
James  I.  no  less  than  five  versions  were  issued, 
commonly  known  as  Coverdale's,  Taverner's,  Cran- 


44  our  father's  book. 

mer's,  the  Genevan,  and  the  Bishop's  Bibles,  all 
prepared  by  men  of  eminent  ability,  all  having 
their  own  special  merits,  but  no  one  fitted  in  all 
respects  to  become  the  English  Bible  for  the  nation 
and  the  race.  Hence  the  last  undertaking  by 
order  of  King  James  I.,  which,  by  the  verdict  of 
all  scholars,  has  given  us  what,  though  not  with- 
out some  blemishes,  is  the  masterpiece  of  English 
literature. 

Second,  they  had  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  origi- 
nals, which,  by  the  labors  of  such  scholars  as 
Erasmus  and  others,  had  been  compiled  from 
ancient  manuscripts  and  recently  published  on 
the  Continent.  In  Wiclif's  day  these  were  little 
known,  and  his  translation  was  made  from  the 
Latin  Vulgate,  which  came  down  from  St.  Jerome 
about  A.D.  390.  The  revival  of  learning  in  the 
fiftenth  century  brought  to  light  many  of  these 
manuscripts,  and  led  to  the  preparation  of  revised 
texts  of  both  Hebrew  and  Greek.  The  whole 
number  of  Hebrew  manuscripts  now  known,  of 
various  ages,  including  fragments,  is  somewhat 
less  than  seven  hundred ;  of  Greek,  over  seventeen 
hundred.  King  James's  translators,  according  to 
their  statement  on  the  title  page,  made  their  ver- 
sion from  the  original  languages,  diligently  com- 
paring and  correcting  it  by  the  former  English 
versions. 

We  add  a  few  words  here  respecting  the  new 
Revision  of  1881.     The  lapse  of  nearly  three  hun- 


ITS   HISTORY.  45 

dred  years  has  made  some  changes  in  our  lan- 
guage, and  a  wider  range  of  manuscripts  has 
disclosed  some  errors  in  the  texts  formerly  used. 
It  had  long  been  felt,  therefore,  that  a  revision  of 
King  James's  version  was  desirable,  to  amend  it  in 
these  and  other  respects.  At  length,  in  1870, 
the  two  Houses  of  Convocation  of  the  English 
Church  appointed  a  committee  to  take  the  matter 
into  consideration.  Their  report  was  favorable  to 
the  undertaking,  and  led  ultimately  to  the  selec- 
tion of  one  hundred  scholars,  of  whom  sixty-six 
were  British  and  thirty-four  Americans.  Their 
labors  on  the  New  Testament  were  completed,  and 
the  book  was  published  in  1881.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment, it  is  expected,  will  appear  in  1885. 

Such  has  been  the  vast  outlay  of  time,  toil, 
learning,  and  expense  to  give  us  our  English 
Bible.  It  has  extended  over  a  period  of  five  hun- 
dred years,  and  has  employed  the  highest  talents, 
the  profoundest  learning,  and  the  most  saintly 
piety  of  the  nation  in  that  time.  It  has  been 
sealed  by  the  blood  of  martyrs,  and  favored  with 
the  patronage  of  kings.  Upon  it  has  been  lavished 
more  research  and  more  learning  than  upon  any 
other  book  the  world  ever  saw,  and  it  has  been 
multiplied  and  circulated  in  numbers  that  no 
other  has  paralleled. .  If  it  be  Our  Father's  Book, 
the  Word  of  God,  it  is  worthy  of  it  all ;  that  it 
has  commanded  all  this  is  most  satisfactory  evi- 
dence that  its  claim  to  be  such  is  just. 


46  our  father's  book. 

Section  II. 

The  Hebrew   Old  Testament. 

By  the  help  of  the  manuscripts  employed  by 
our  translators,  we  ascend  the  past  to  the  time  of 
Christ ;  or  more  exactly,  for  the  Old  Testament, 
to  a  little  less  than  three  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  and  for  the  New  Testament,  to  a  hundred 
years  after.  We  fix  upon  these  dates  because  we 
have  undoubted  evidence  that  those  books  were 
then  in  existence  in  substantially  their  present 
form.  And  we  now  repeat  the  question  already 
asked  of  our  English  version,  whence  did  they 
come  ? 

1.   Formation  of  the  Canon. 

The  earliest  collection  of  the  Old  Testament 
books,  of  which  we  have  certain  knowledge,  is 
what  is  called  the  "Septuagint  Version."  It  is 
true  that  this  does  not  give  them  in  the  Hebrew, 
but  in  a  Greek  translation;  but  that  translation 
being  made  from  the  Hebrew,  because  that  lan- 
guage had  then  ceased  to  be  generally  spoken,  it 
tells  us  equally  well  what  the  Hebrew  original  was. 
There  are,  indeed,  some  discrepancies  between 
it  and  our  Hebrew  Bibles,  which  scholars  account 
for  in  different  ways,  but  which  are  not  important 
to  our  present  discussion. 

After  Alexander  the  Great  overran  Western 
Asia,  the   Greek  language  and  literature  rapidly 


ITS  Hr  STORY.  47 

spread  throughout  the  East.  The  Hebrew  had 
been  much  corrupted  during  the  captivity,  and, 
like  other  native  languages,  had  been  quite  gen- 
erally superseded  as  a  spoken  tongue  by  the 
Greek.  About  B.  C.  280,  the  learned  Jews  of 
Alexandria  in  Egypt,  which  early  became  a  chief 
center  of  Jewish  learning,  in  order  to  have  their 
Scriptures  in  a  tongue  that  could  be  generally  un- 
derstood, translated  the  Pentateuch  into  Greek. 
This  was  followed  from  time  to  time  with  other 
portions,  so  that  probably  the  whole  Old  Testa- 
ment was  extant  in  that  language  as  early  as  about 
B.  C.  280.  Tradition  has  reported  that  the  num- 
ber of  those  translators  was  seventy  or  seventy- 
two,  hence  the  name,  the  "Version  of  the  Sep- 
tuaginta,"  or  Seventy.  That  version  we  have; 
and  it  tells  us  what  was  the  Bible  of  that  date. 
Other  evidence  to  the  same  effect  is  given  us  in 
the  enumeration  of  the  sacred  books  by  Josephus; 
also  in  the  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras,  and  elsewhere. 
This  takes  us  about  half  way  back  from  Christ's 
time  to  that  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  at  this  last- 
mentioned  date  —  the  return  from  the  Captivity 
—  there  was  any  definitely  established  canon  of 
the  Scripture  as  a  whole.  The  law,  comprising 
the  five  Books  of  Moses,  was  in  their  possession, 
and  was  formally  imposed  upon  the  people  with 
great  solemnity  by  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  as  the 
constitution  of  the  new  settlement.      Others   of 


48  our  eather's  book. 

the  sacred  books  were  also  extant,  whose  authority- 
was  acknowledged,  and  a  few  were  at  that  time 
written.  It  was  in  that  interval,  therefore,  of 
about  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  years  from  the 
return  to  the  translation  of  the  Septuagint,  —  say 
from  B.  C.  455  to  280,  —  that  the  collection  and 
arrangement  of  these  into  one  volume  were  made. 

The  unanimous  voice  of  antiquity  assigns  this 
work  to  Ezra  himself  and  his  learned  associates 
who  had  returned  with  him  from  Babylon.  Sev- 
eral of  these  were  themselves  prophets,  as  Zecha- 
riah,  Haggai,  and  Malachi,  and  perhaps  others.  It 
is  possible  that  two  or  three  of  the  very  latest 
books  had  not  been  composed  at  that  time,  — 
such  as  Daniel,  Esther,  and  perhaps  Ecclesiastes. 
The  opinions  of  scholars  differ  on  that  point.  If 
not,  they  may  have  been  added  by  the  successors 
of  Ezra  iu  the  sacred  office,  and  been  recognized 
by  the  synagogues  as  proper  portions  of  the  sacred 
oracles. 

Besides  these,  there  was  a  considerable  body 
of  other  writings  of  a  religious  character  which 
claimed  acceptance.  They  are  what  is  known  to 
us  as  "  The  Apocrypha."  They  were  written  in 
Greek,  at  different  dates,  and  were  admitted  into 
the  Septuagint  Version.  The  Jews,  however,  did 
not  recognize  them  as  authoritative,  and  they 
formed  no  part  of  the  sacred  canon  as  described 
by  Josephus. 

We  are  brought,  therefore,  to  the  origin  of  the 


ITS   HISTORY.  49 

volume  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  a  whole.  It 
was  at  the  period  when  the  Jews,  returning  in 
small  and  straggling  companies  from  their  seventy 
years'  servitude  in  the  East,  sought,  under  the 
direction  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  to  lay  anew  the 
foundations  of  their  city  and  nation.  As  their  ter- 
rible chastisement  from  Jehovah  had  been  in  con- 
sequence of  their  neglect  of  his  requirements,  they 
would  naturally  wish  to  learn  anew  what  they  were, 
and  make  them  henceforth  their  fundamental  laws. 
We  cannot  doubt  that  these  men,  a  saintly  priest 
and  a  pious  magistrate,  with  their  prophetic  as- 
sociates, performed  their  great  duties  under  the 
divine  guidance,  and  the  work  which  they  did  in 
collecting,  supplementing,  and  arranging  the  ven- 
erable writings  of  the  past  was  one  of  the  highest 
dignity  and  importance. 

2.  The  Writers. 

There  is  a  further  question  lying  back  of  all 
we  have  said,  and  that  is  respecting  the  original 
writers  of  the  sacred  books.  It  is  a  question  of 
no  little  difficulty,  owing  to  their  remote  anti- 
quity, and  the  fact  that  it  was  not  customary,  as 
in  modern  times,  for  authors  to  attach  their  names 
to  their  productions.  The  most  we  shall  be  able 
to  do  is  to  indicate  what  seem  to  be  the  conclu- 
sions of  our  ablest  scholars  and  commentators. 

The  Pentateuch.  —  Until  quite  recent  times 
the  tradition  of  the  Jews  has  been  accepted,  with 


50  ottb,  father's  book. 

but  little  doubt,  that  these  books  were  written  b}^ 
Moses,  and  they  accordingly  bear  his  name  in  our 
Bibles.  But  a  theory  quite  adverse  to  this  has 
been  started  by  certain  rationalists  of  Europe,  and 
warmly  advocated  by  Prof.  W.  Robertson  Smith 
of  Scotland,  through  whose  lectures  chiefly  it  has 
been  introduced  into  this  country. 

It  is  based  mostly  on  this  alleged  fact,  that  the 
great  body  of  the  rites  and  institutions  inculcated 
by  the  Levitical  law  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
actually  in  use  during  the  whole  historic  period 
from  Moses  down  to  the  time  of  King  Josiah. 
Instead  of  a  worship  celebrated  in  the  tabernacle 
or  temple  alone,  under  the  ministry  of  the  high 
priest,  and  with  the  elaborate  ritual  required,  we 
find  altars  and  high  places  set  up  all  over  the 
land  where  convenient,  and  served  often  by  others 
than  the  priests.  The  three  great  festivals  of  the 
Passover,  the  Pentecost,  and  of  Tabernacles  were 
not  observed.  The  actual  religion  in  exercise  in 
both  kingdoms  was  a  simpler  and  freer  one  than 
that  prescribed  in  the  ritual.  In  a  word,  the  in- 
ference is  that  the  latter  was  unknown  ;  i.  e.,  the 
Pentateuch,  except  those  chapters  which  contain 
the  ten  commandments  and  the  simple  code  in 
Exodus  21,  22,  and  23,  was  not  written.  These 
exceptions,  it  is  conceded,  containing,  so  to  speak, 
the  kernel  of  the  Hebrew  national  law,  were  very 
ancient,  and  were  indisputably  from  the  hand  of 
Moses. 


ITS   HISTORY.  51 

But  the  nation  ever  tended  to  run  into  idolatry, 
and  bring  upon  it  the  divine  chastisements  for  its 
sins.  A  few  years  after  the  captivity  of  Israel  (2 
Kings  17  :  6),  the  young  king  Josiah,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  prophets,  undertook  a  reform  of  his 
kingdom  of  Judah.  During  the  making  of  certain 
repairs  upon  the  temple,  a  book  was  found  and 
brought  by  the  high  priest  Hilkiah  to  the  king, 
which  purported  to  be  the  ancient  law,  long  lost,  and 
by  the  neglect  of  which  the  judgments  of  God  were 
impending  over  the  nation.  That  book,  it  is  said, 
was  what  we  now  know  as  the  Book  of  Deuteron- 
omy, from  chapter  12  to  26  inclusive,  which,  as 
the  name  imports,  was  in  fact  the  "  Second  Law." 
It  was  probably  the  work  of  the  prophets,  who, 
inasmuch  as  it  embodied  the  spirit  of  the  first  code 
given  by  Moses,  represented  him  as  the  author  of 
this  also ;  and  thus  a  power  was  gained  which  ren- 
dered it  efficacious  in  securing  a  practical  reform 
of  the  nation. 

But  even  this  was  superficial  and  transient. 
Judah  was  given  up  to  the  fate  of  her  sister 
kingdom,  and  carried  into  captivity.  During  that 
period  the  prophet  Ezekiel  was  favored  with  the 
vision  of  a  new  temple,  and  a  new,  elaborate,  and 
complete  temple  service,  as  described  in  the  last 
eight  chapters  of  his  book,  which  was  to  be  estab- 
lished for  the  ritual  of  the  restoration,  the  new 
state  founded  by  the  returned  captives  under  the 
lead  of  Ezra  and   Nehemiah.     This  new,  inflex- 


52  our  father's  book. 

ible,  minutely-prescribed  establishment,  called  the 
"priest  code,"  was  designed  to  be  a  wall  of  de- 
fense around  the  people  ever  after,  to  make  sure 
that  they  should  never  again  relapse  into  idolatry, 
and  proved  in  fact  successful  for  that  purpose.  It 
was  reduced  into  a  working  form  by  Ezekiel  and 
his  associates,  and  constitutes  the  ceremonial  law 
as  contained  in  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Numbers. 
Finally,  the  three  codes  thus  described  were 
"  edited  "  by  Ezra,  or  some  of  the  learned  scribes 
associated  with  him,  supplied  with  an  historical 
framework  derived  from  ancient  documents,  tra- 
ditions, etc.,  and  thus  brought  into  the  complete 
and  orderly  form  known  to  us  as  the  "  Penta- 
teuch," or  Five  Books  of  Moses. 

We  have  described  this  theory  so  fully  because 
it  has  occupied  so  large  a  space  in  what  is  called 
the  "higher  criticism,"  and  has  been  accepted  by 
many  as  probably  true.  But  the  great  body  of 
scholars  have  failed  to  find  sufficient  evidence  to 
support  it,  and  the  more  it  is  discussed  the  more 
disinclined  are  they  to  receive  it.  We  cannot  go 
at  length  into  the  argument;  it  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  the  evidence  for  the  Mosaic  authorship  seems 
ample  and  decisive. 

It  is  not  doubted,  however,  that  Moses  made 
use  of  more  ancient  authorities  existing  in  his  day, 
especially  in  composing  the  Book  of  Genesis. 
Having  been  himself  educated  in  the  highest 
schools  of  Egypt,  and  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of 


ITS   HISTORY.  53 

the  Egyptians,  which  had  come  down  from  a  far 
antiquity,  he  had  extensive  sources  of  knowledge 
apart  from  any  supernatural  revelation,  as  to  the 
beginning  of  the  world  and  the  origin  of  nations. 
Neither  is  it  questioned  that  a  few  additions,  and 
what  we  may  call  "editorial  notes,"  were  supplied 
by  a  later  hand,  as  the  account  of  Moses'  death, 
the  mention  of  his  character  for  meekness  (Num. 
12 : 3),  of  the  Canaanite  and  the  Perizzite  (Gen. 
13 : 7),  of  the  king  of  Eclom  before  there  was  a 
king  in  Israel  (Gen.  36  :  31),  etc.  But  these  do 
not  affect  the  body  of  the  work  or  constitute  any 
substantial  reason  for  doubting  that  in  all  essential 
respects  these  five  books  should  still  bear,  as  they 
have  in  all  ages  past,  the  name  of  the  great  He- 
brew lawgiver.1 

Joshua.  —  The  same  things,  nearly,  are  to  be' 
said  of  this  book,  Joshua  himself  being  recognized 
as  its  author.  It  is  properly  a  continuation  of  the 
Pentateuch,  as  Joshua's  work  was  but  the  comple- 
tion of  that  which  had  been  wrought  by  Moses. 
The  last  chapter  may  have  been  appended  by  some 
of  "the  elders  that  outlived  Joshua,"  to  give  com- 
pleteness to  the  narrative. 

Judges  and  Ruth.  —  The  authorship  of  these 
books  is  unknown.     The  former  is,  doubtless,  a 

1  See  able  refutations  of  this  theory  in  "  Sources  of  History  in 
the  Pentateuch,"  by  President  Bartlett;  also  in  "A  "Vindica- 
tion of  the  Mosaic  Authorship  of  the  Pentateuch,"  by  Prof. 
Charles  Elliott. 


54  our  father's  book. 

compilation  of  various  records  covering  the  cha- 
otic period  of  Hebrew  history  from  Joshua  to 
Samuel  inclusive,  about  410  years.  The  most  that 
can  be  said  is  that  the  compiler  seems  to  have 
lived  in  the  days  of  Saul.  He  may  have  been 
Samuel,  but  it  is  not  probable. 

Ruth  is  thought  to  have  been  written  near  the 
time  of  David's  highest  prosperity.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  the  evidence  it  affords  that  David 
was  descended  in  part  from  a  Gentile  source,  was 
intended  to  render  his  sovereignty  less  forbidding 
to  the  mixed  races  whom  he  had  subjected  to  his 
authority.  If  so,  it  must  have  been  prepared  by 
David's  consent,  perhaps  by  some  one  of  the  cul- 
tivated men  that  dwelt  at  court  under  the  patron- 
age of  the  king. 

Samuel.  —  The  two  books  of  Samuel,  so  named 
not  because  Samuel  was  the  author,  but  their 
subject,  are  also  anonymous.  They  bear  in- 
ternal evidence  of  being  compilations  from 
various  sources,  documentary  and  traditional. 
Their  date  is  probably  not  far  from  the  time 
of  Rehoboam,  shortly  after  the  division  of  the 
kingdom. 

Kings.  —  The  general  opinion  is  that  the  two 
books  of  Kings,  which  in  the  Hebrew  are  one, 
were  composed  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  or  more 
probably,  Ezra,  during  the  captivity  or  shortly 
after.  They  are  professedly  derived  from  older 
writings  now  lost,  as  the  "  Book  of  the  Acts  of 


ITS   HISTORY.  55 

Solomon"  (1  Kings  11:41),  the  "Book  of  the 
Chronicles  (Heb.  the  days)  of  the  kings  of  Ju- 
dah,"  (1  Kings  14 :  29)  and  the  "  Books  of  the 
Chronicles  (days)  of  the  kings  of  Israel."  1  Kings 
14:19. 

Chronicles.  —  These  two  books  are  supposed 
to  be  the  latest  in  the  canon,  with  possibly  one  or 
two  exceptions,  composed  by  some  learned  scribe 
from  official  sources  mostly,  about  B.  C.  330. 

Ezra  and  Nehemiah  are  believed  to  have  been 
written  by  the  persons  whose  names  they  bear. 
They  were  anciently  appended  to  2  Chronicles, 
probably  by  the  compiler  of  the  latter,  who 
may  have  given  them  some  slight  touches  in 
addition. 

Esther.  —  The  authorship  of  this  book  is 
purely  conjectural,  as  is  the  date.  Rawlinson 
assigns  it  to  B.  C.  425  ;  others  a  hundred  years 
later. 

Job.  —  Total  darkness  envelops  the  author  and 
date  of  this  book.  It  is  useless  to  cite  conjectures. 
Possibly  a  middle  period  may  be  deemed  most 
probable,  say  about  the  time  of  Solomon. 

The  Psalms.  —  These  are  collections  of  re- 
ligious poems  by  many  authors  and  of  different 
dates,  from  Moses  till  after  the  Exile.  Moses, 
David,  Asaph,  Heman,  and  Solomon  are  the  only 
names  mentioned  as  authors,  and  some  of  these  are 
uncertain.  Forty-nine  of  the  Psalms  are  anony- 
mous.     They  were  originally   comprised  in  five 


56  our  father's  book. 

books  collected  at  different  times,  principally,  it  is 
believed,  with  reference  to  use  in  the  public  service 
in  the  temple. 

The  Proverbs.  —  These  also  are  collections  of 
the  pithy  sayings  and  maxims  of  the  Hebrew 
sages,  chiefly  of  Solomon.  Like  the  Psalms,  they 
were  gathered  at  different  times,  some,  perhaps,  in 
the  days  of  Solomon,  some  by  "  the  men  of  Heze- 
kiah"  (chap.  25:1),  three  hundred  years  after, 
and  a  few  at  a  later  date. 

Ecclesiastes.  —  The  traditional  conjecture  that 
Solomon  was  the  author  of  this  book  is  now  al- 
most universally  abandoned.  It  is  attributed  to 
some  philosophizing  writer  after  the  Exile,  who 
discussed  the  perplexing  aspects  of  the  present  life, 
and  reached  the  conclusion  that  to  fear  God  and 
keep  his  commandments  was  the  highest  duty  and 
good  of  man. 

The  Song  of  Solomon  is  now  regarded  mostly 
in  a  similar  light,  as  a  work  not  written  by  Solo- 
mon himself,  but  about  him ;  its  special  purpose 
being  to  contrast  the  happiness  of  a  pure  and  vir- 
tuous love  between  a  single  pair  with  the  splendid 
but  guilty  pleasures  of  a  harem. 

The  Prophets.  — It  is  generally  conceded  that 
the  prophetic  books  were  written  by  those  whose 
names  they  bear.  Doubts  have  been  thrown  by 
some  upon  the  authorship  of  Jonah,  and  indeed 
upon  the  historical  character  of  the  book,  but  they 
have  not  been  allowed  much  weight.     The  dates 


ITS   HISTORY. 


57 


of  the  several  books  are  usually  given  as  follows, 
arranging  them  in  the  order  of  priority :  — 


Obadiah 

Joel 

Jonah 

Amos 

Hosea 

Isaiah 

Micah 

Nahum 

Zephaniah 

Jeremiah 

Habakkuk 

Ezekiel     . 

Daniel 

Haggai      . 

Zechariah 

Malachi     . 


B.  C. 

890-880 
850 
825-790 
810-783 
790-725 
760-690 
753-710 
680 
639-609 
628-583 
608-590 
594-535 
605-536 
520-515 
520-510 
443-^24 


It  will  serve  to  indicate  more  fully  the  times 
above  specified  to  note  that  the  destruction  of  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  by  the  Assyrians  was  in  B.  C. 
722 ;  of  Judah  by  the  Chaldeans,  in  B.  C.  588 ; 
and  of  the  restoration  under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah, 
B.  C.  536-446. 

3.  The  Bible  in  the  Time  of  Christ. 
The  collection  of  the  inspired  books  thus  made 
by  Ezra  and  his  associates  came  down  to  the  time 
of  Christ,  and  though  the  Hebrew  in  its  ancient 
form  had  ceased  to  be  commonly  spoken,  it  was 
still  preserved  in  the  sacred  rolls,  and  read  in  the 
synagogue  worship  of  the  Sabbath  days.     In  com- 


58  oun  father's  book. 

mon  use  among  the  people,  the  Septuagint,  or 
Greek  Version,  was  more  frequent.  Of  these  facts 
there  is  the  most  abundant  and  satisfactory  testi- 
mony from  writers  of  those  times.  Our  space  will 
admit  of  only  that  furnished  b}^  Josephus,  who 
lived  about  forty  years  after  the  crucifixion  of 
Christ. 

"  We  have  not  a  countless  number  of  books,  discordant  and 
arrayed  against  each  other,  but  only  two  and  twenty  books  con- 
taining the  history  of  every  age,  which  are  justly  accredited  as 
divine;  and  of  these  Jive  belong  to  Moses,  which  contain  both 
the  laws  and  the  history  of  the  generations  of  men  until  his 
death.  This  period  lacks  but  little  of  3,000  years.  From  the 
death  of  Moses,  moreover,  until  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  king 
of  the  Persians  after  Xerxes,  the  prophets  who  followed  Moses 
have  described  the  things  which  were  done  during  the  age  of 
each,  one  respectively  in  thirteen  books.  The  remaining  four 
contain  hymns  to  God  and  rules  of  life  for  men.  From  the 
time  of  Artaxerxes,  moreover,  until  our  present  period,  all 
occurrences  have  been  written  down ;  but  they  are  not  regarded 
as  entitled  to  the  like  credit  with  those  which  precede  them, 
because  there  was  no  certain  succession  of  prophets.  Fact  has 
shown  what  confidence  we  place  in  our  own  writings.  For, 
although  so  many  ages  have  passed  away,  no  one  has  dared  to 
add  to  them,  nor  to  take  anything  from  them,  nor  to  make 
alterations.  In  all  Jews  it  is  implanted,  even  from  their  birth, 
to  regard  them  as  being  the  instructions  of  God,  and  to  abide; 
steadfastly  by  them,  and,  if  it  be  necessary,  to  die  gladly  for 
them."  * 

These  twenty-two  books  of  Josephus  are  under- 
stood to  be  as  follows :  —  1,  Genesis  ;  2,  Exodus ; 
3,  Leviticus ;    4,  Numbers  ;    5,  Deuteronomy ;    6, 
Joshua ;  7,  Judges  and  Ruth ;  8,  Samuel  (1st  and 
*  Against  Apion,  §  8. 


ITS   HISTORY.  59 

2d) ;  9,  Kings  (1st  and  2d) ;  10,  Chronicles  (1st 
and  2d)  ;  11,  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  ;  12,  Esther  ;  13, 
Isaiah ;  14,  Jeremiah  and  Lamentations ;  15, 
Ezekiel ;  16,  Daniel ;  17,  Twelve  Minor  Prophets 
(viz.,  Hosea,  Joel,  Amos,  Obadiah,  Jonah,  Micah, 
Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai,  Zechariah, 
Malachi) ;  18,  Job;  19,  Psalms;  20,  Proverbs; 
21,  Ecclesiastes ;  22,  Canticles.  It  is  supposed 
that  Josephus  counted  them  in  this  way  in  order 
to  make  the  entire  number  22,  corresponding  to 
the  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  Other  writers 
of  the  same  period,  or  later,  numbered  them  some- 
what differently,  but  the  list  as  a  whole  com- 
prehended the  same  books. 

Thus  much  is  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose, 
viz.,  to  show  what  the  sacred  volume  was  in  the 
days  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  Further,  it  not 
only  contained  the  same  books,  but,  as  can  be 
shown  from  quotations  in  the  New  Testament, 
in  the  Talmud,  in  the  writings  of  Josephus  and 
Philo,  the  Jewish  Rabbis,  and  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian Fathers,  it  was  in  all  its  contents  almost 
exactly  identical  with  the  volume  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  we  now  have  it.  Not  another  book  of 
antiquity  can  be  named  which  has  come  down  to 
us  in  such  perfect  preservation  as  this.  We  are 
not  so  sure  that  we  have  the  words  which  Cicero 
and  Virgil  and  Sallust  and  Plato  and  Xenophon 
and  Homer  actually  wrote  as  those  which  were 
edited   by  Ezra,  and  were  actually  read  on  the 


60  our  father's  book. 

Sabbath  in  the  synagogues  of  the  Jews  in  all  the 
then  known  world. 

This  Book  was  our  Saviour's  Bible.  We  shall 
presently  see  what  he  says  of  its  divine  authority. 

Section  III. 

The  JVew  Testament. 

It  will  doubtless  seem  surprising  to  many  to  be 
told  that  the  formation  of  the  canon  of  the  New 
Testament, — its  make-up,  to  use  a  familiar  word, 
—  is  one  of  the  most  obscure  topics  of  theology. 
The  period  within  which  most  of  its  books  were 
written,  say  from  A.D.  50  to  70,  and  the  subse- 
quent one  in  which  they  Avere  gathered,  arranged, 
and  at  last  formed  into  an  accepted  collection,  cov- 
ering nearly  two  centuries,  are  as  a  whole  the  least 
known  of  all  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  Apart 
from  the  New  Testament  books  themselves,  there 
are  literally  no  Christian  writings  surviving  of  the 
first  century,  and  comparatively  few  of  the  second, 
and  these  mostly  fragmentary.  Not  that  there 
were  no  Christian  writers  of  that  first  age,  but 
that  their  genuine  productions  have  mostly  per- 
ished, probably  because  of  the  persecutions  which 
raged  at  that  time.  The  enemies  of  Christianity 
sought  to  destroy  all  vestiges  of  it,  and  often, 
doubtless,  Christians  themselves  would  conceal  or 
put  out  of  the  way  any  writings  in  their  possession 
which,   if    found,   would   endanger   their    safety. 


ITS   HISTORY.  61 

Hence  our  knowledge  of  that  period  is  mostly 
derived  from  tradition,  or  from  the  authors  of  a 
subsequent  date,  the  third  century  or  later,  who 
often  are  silent  on  points  of  interest,  or  confess 
themselves  ignorant  of  them. 

The  first  form  of  Christian  teaching  was  oral. 
It  was  the  testimony  of  the  apostles  and  others 
who  had  been  eye-witnesses  of  the  ministry  and 
death  of  our  Lord,  and  who  told  the  story  that 
was  subsequently  written  out  in  the  Gospels. 
Among  the  Jews  this  was  accompanied  with  cita- 
tions and  arguments  drawn  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  prove  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  predicted 
by  the  prophets.  Samples  of  this  preaching  are 
seen  in  Peter's  speech  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
Stephen's  before  his  martyrdom,  Paul's  at  Antioch 
of  Pisidia,  etc.  Among  the  Gentiles  a  somewhat 
wider  scope  of  topics  was  employed,  as  in  Paul's  ad- 
dress on  Mars'  Hill.  But  in  all  these  cases  the  per- 
sonal testimony  was  the  largest  and  most  impres- 
sive part.  "  We  cannot  but  speak  the  things  which 
we  have  seen  and  heard,"  was  a  declaration  which 
made  its  way  to  the  heart  of  both  Jew  and  Greek. 

Thus  for  twenty  years  or  more  after  the  begin- 
ning of  the  church  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  the 
oral  instruction  of  the  apostles  and  their  associ- 
ation —  men  like  Philip,  Barnabas,  Silas,  Luke, 
Mark,  Timothy,  Titus,  Apollos,  and  others  —  was 
all  that  was  had  or  was  needed.  But  as  time  went 
on  the  condition  of  things  was  changed.     Chris- 


62  our  father's  book. 

tianity  had  spread  far  and  wide.  The  early 
preachers  had  grown  old,  and  many  of  them 
had  died.  Troubles  were  thickening  against  the 
Jews,  which  ultimately  led  to  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem.  Persecution  broke  out  against  the 
Christians  at  Rome.  Personal  teaching  became 
insufficient  in  these  circumstances  for  the  wants 
of  the  churches.  Hence  letters  began  to  be  ad- 
dressed by  the  apostles  to  those  whom  they  could 
not  visit  in  person.  The  story  of  the  life,  teach- 
ings, and  miracles  of  Christ,  which  had  been  orally 
related,  was  written  down  for  preservation  after 
the  "eye-witnesses"  were  dead.  So,  in  the  course 
of  fifty  years, —  the  last  half  of  the  first  century, 
—  a  large  number  of  writings  came  into  existence 
bearing  the  names  of  Gospels,  Epistles,  and  Acts, 
some  still  extant,  and  others  now  lost,  out  of  which 
ultimately  were  selected  and  received  as  inspired 
that  collection  which  we  now  have  in  the  New 
Testament. 

The  earliest,  and  therefore  the  oldest,  of  these 
is,  probably,  the  Epistle  of  James.  He  was  not 
an  apostle,  but  one  of  the  four  brothers,  James, 
Joseph,  Judas,  and  Simon,  who,  in  Mark  6 :  3,  are 
called  the  "brothers  "  of  our  Lord.  At  the  time  of 
the  crucifixion  he  was  not  a  believer,  but  became 
such  in  consequence  of  a  special  appearance  of  the 
Lord  to  him.  1  Cor.  15 :  7.  He  was  the  first 
bishop,  or  pastor,  of  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  in 
which  capacity  he  presided  at  the  first   council 


ITS   HISTORY.  68 

held  there,  to  settle  the  question  whether  circum- 
cision and  the  Mosaic  law  should  be  enforced 
upon  the  Gentile  converts.  Acts  15 :  18-21.  The 
church  at  Jerusalem  was  the  mother  church,  the 
first,  and,  till  the  destruction  of  that  city,  doubt- 
less the  most  numerous  of  all.  Its  members,  in 
consequence  of  persecution  or  in  the  pursuit  of 
business,  were  scattered  abroad  through  all  the 
empire.  Here  they  were  subject  to  hostility  and 
oppression  both  by  Jews  and  heathen ;  many  were 
poor,  and  all  in  great  danger  of  being  seduced 
back  into  Judaism.  Hence  their  pastor,  it  is  sup- 
posed, about  the  year  50,  addressed  these  absentee 
members  of  his  flock  this  circular  letter,  exhorting 
them  to  steadfastness  of  faith,  to  purity  of  life,  to 
patience  under  poverty  and  trial,  and  an  unshaken 
trust  in  the  promised  Parousia,  or  coming  of  the 
Lord,  which  he  assured  them  was  near  at  hand, 
the  Judge  and  Rewarder  even  then  standing  be- 
fore the  doors.     James  5 :  8,  9. 

At  about  the  same  time,  and  for  nearly  the 
same  purpose,  it  is  believed,  the  first  gospel  was 
written,  and,  as  Schaff  suggests,  may  have  been 
sent  out  as  a  companion  for  said  pastoral  epistle. 
Almost  nothing  is  known  with  certainty  of  the 
apostolic  labors  of  Matthew.  Some  of  the  early 
fathers  say  that  his  gospel  was  written  first  in 
Hebrew,  —  i.  e.,  the  mixed  dialect  often  called 
Aramaean —  which  was  then  commonly  spoken  in 
Palestine.     If  so,  he  also  wrote  it  in  Greek,  in 


64  our  father's  book. 

which  language  we  now  have  it,  and  the  Hebrew 
original  has  been  lost. 

The  next  earliest  portions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  believed  to  be  the  two  epistles  of  Paul 
to  the  Thessalonians,  the  dates  of  which  are  well 
ascertained  to  be  A.  D.  53  and  54.  His  martyr- 
dom at  Rome  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  been 
in  A.  D.  67  or  68;  hence  his  other  epistles  must 
date  within  the  fourteen  years  intervening.  Their 
chronological  order  is  as  follows  :  Galatians,  Cor- 
inthians (1st  and  2d),  and  Romans,  between  56  and 
58 ;  the  Epistles  of  the  Captivity,  so-called,  —  t.  e., 
written  while  their  author  was  in  prison  at  Rome, 
—  Colossians,  Ephesians,  Philemon,  and  Philip- 
pians,  between  61  and  62 ;  Timothy  and  Titus  un- 
certain, except  that  2  Timothy  is  the  latest  of  all, 
written  on  the  very  eve  of  his  execution. 

The  Gospel  of  Luke  is  supposed  to  have  been 
written  at  Rome  during  Paul's  imprisonment 
(A.  D.  61,  62),  in  which  Luke  was  Paul's  com- 
panion, and  was  followed  almost  immediately  by 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  by  the  same  writer. 
The  latter  ends  with  that  imprisonment.  They 
were  addressed  to  a  distinguished  person  named 
Theophilus,  conjectured  to  have  been  a  Greek  by 
birth,  and  a  resident  of  Antioch,  in  Syria.  Luke's 
gospel  differs  from  that  of  Matthew  in  having 
been  intended  for  Gentile  Christians,  especially 
Greeks,  as  the  latter  was  for  Jews. 

The  Gospel  by  Mark  is  traditionally  connected 


ITS  HISTORY.  65 

with  the  preaching  of  Peter  at  Rome.  The  early 
writers  agree  that  he  was  Peter's  "  interpreter," 
by  which  some  suppose  that  he  translated  the 
apostle's  discourses  into  Latin  for  the  understand- 
ing of  the  Roman  people ;  others,  that  he  merely 
committed  to  writing  what  was  delivered  by  Peter 
orally.  In  this,  however,  is  involved  another 
difficult  question,  viz.,  whether  in  fact  Peter 
ever  visited  Rome;  and  if  so,  Avhen.  We  cannot 
go  into  this  much-disputed  topic.  Our  impres- 
sion is,  from  all  we  can  gather,  that  Peter  did 
visit  Rome  near  the  close  of  his  life,  accompanied 
by  Mark  as  his  helper  (compare  Acts  13 :  5)  and 
interpreter;  that  the  latter  wrote  down  for  the 
use  of  the  Roman  church  the  story  of  Christ's 
life  as  Peter  had  related  it,  and  that  this  was  the 
Gospel  by  Mark  as  we  now  have  it.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  he  wrote  first  in  Latin,  but  it  is 
without  weight.  Latin  was  indeed  the  common 
speech  of  the  people,  but  Greek  was  more  fre- 
quently employed  in  writing  books,  especially 
those  that  were  to  be  circulated  through  the 
empire. 

Of  the  remaining  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
five  are  believed  to  have  been  written  in  the  years 
immediately  preceding  the  overthrow  of  Jeru- 
salem (A.  D.  70),  and  while  the  shadows  of  that 
great  tragedy  were  beginning  to  darken  the  hori- 
zon of  the  world.  The  1st  and  2d  Epistles  of 
Peter  seem  to  have  been  written   at  Rome,  and 


66  our  father's  book. 

both  speak  of  that  event  as  just  at  hand. 
1  Pet.  4 :  7,  12,  17 ;  2  Pet.  3 :  10-13.  The  latter 
implies  also  that  it  was  immediately  before  the 
writer's  death.  Ch.  1:  14, 15.  Jude  was  a  brother 
of  James,  and,  of  course,  one  of  the  four  sons  of 
Joseph,  reputed  to  be  the  brothers  of  our  Lord. 
The  Revelation  by  John  is  now  acknowledged  by 
the  best  writers  to  have  been  composed  in  A.  D. 
68  or  69,  and  to  be  mainly  occupied  with  matters 
pertaining  to  the  same  catastrophe.  The  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  shows  in  Chap.  10  :  25,  36,  37,  that 
it  belongs  to  the  same  period. 

The  Gospel  of  John  and  his  three  Epistles 
come  latest  in  the  sacred  catalogue.  They  were 
written  in  the  serene  old  age  of  the  apostle,  prob- 
ably at  Ephesus,  which  had  been  the  principal  seat 
of  his  ministry,  and  of  whose  church  tradition  re- 
ports that  he  was  bishop  or  pastor.  They  all  date 
from  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  prob- 
ably as  late  as  A.  D.  98. 

Besides  the  above  twenty-seven  books,  which 
long  since  gained  a  permanent  place  in  the  canon 
of  the  New  Testament,  there  are  numerous  others 
which  have  claimed  that  place,  but  are  classed  as 
apocryphal.  Some  of  them  are  undoubtedly  gen- 
uine writings  of  the  early  fathers,  as  some  are 
spurious,  but  they  have  all  been  pronounced  as 
lacking  those  credentials  which  entitle  them  to  be 
received  as  inspired.  Among  them  are  the  so- 
called  Gospels  of  James,  of  the  Infancy,  of  Joseph, 


ITS  HISTORY.  67 

of  Nicodemus,  of  Peter,  of  Thomas,  and  to  the 
Hebrews ;  the  Acts  of  Peter  and  Paul,  of  Thomas, 
of  Thaddeus,  and  many  others ;  the  Epistles  of 
Paul  and  Seneca,  the  third  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the 
Corinthians,  the  Epistle  of  Mary,  the  Apocalypse 
of  Peter,  of  Paul,  of  Thomas,  of  Stephen,  of  Mary, 
of  Moses,  of  Ezra,  etc. 

Such,  as  well  as  can  be  now  ascertained,  were 
the  origin  and  dates  of  the  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. There  is  one  more  question,  then,  to  be 
considered,  —  In  what  way  was  the  selection 
made,  out  of  all  these  writings,  of  those  that  were 
to  be  accepted  as  inspired,  and  by  what  criterion 
was  this  done  ?  In  other  words,  how  was  the 
New  Testament  canon  made  up  ? 

In  reply,  we  may  say  of  it  as  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  Christianity  itself,  it  came  not  with  ob- 
servation. That  selection  was  made  privately  and 
spontaneously  by  the  churches,  one  by  one,  and 
each  for  itself,  in  the  exercise  of  their  own  intelli- 
gence and  judgment.  The  canon  was  not  made 
up  and  imposed  upon  them  by  anybody.  There 
was  never  any  decree  of  bishop,  magistrate,  or 
council  designating  particular  books  or  any  par- 
ticular collection  of  books,  to  be  received  as  divine. 
There  is  no  recorded  vote  of  any  single  church 
adopting  any  one.  Such  votes  there  may  have 
been  ;  something  equivalent  there  doubtless  was ; 
but  no  report  of  it  has  come  down  to  us.  Conse- 
quently, there  is  no  history  of  the  formation  of 


68  our  father's  book. 

the  canon.  When  history  began  to  speak  on  the 
subject,  it  was  already  formed.  The  earliest 
writers  only  state  what  the  canon  was,  —  what 
books  in  fact  were  received  by  all  or  a  part  of  the 
churches,  but  say  very  little  or  nothing  of  the 
mode  in  which  they  became  so. 

The  first  gleams  of  information  we  have  on  this 
subject  are  found  in  some  of  the  later  books  of 
the  New  Testament  itself.  In  2  Pet.  3 :  16,  the 
Epistles  of  Paul  are  mentioned,  and  are  classified 
with  "  the  other  Scriptures."  So  Jude  17  exhorts 
his  readers  to  "remember  the  words  which  were 
spoken  before  by  the  apostles  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  who  said  there  should  be  scoffers  in  the 
last  time.  Now  just  these  words  are  found  in 
2  Pet.  3 : 2.  Both  these  references  imply  that 
the  Epistles  of  Paul  and  Peter  were  already  extant 
in  the  churches,  at  least  in  some  of  them,  and 
were  regarded  as  of  inspired  authority.  This  was 
before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem   in  A.  D.  70. 

The  last  quarter  of  the  first  century,  A.  D. 
75-100,  was  the  period  of  the  "  Apostolical 
Fathers,"  i.  e.,  of  those  who  had  been,  in  part  at 
least,  contemporary  with  the  apostles,  and  had 
been  taught  by  them.  The  three  most  eminent 
of  these  were  Clement  of  Rome,  Ignatius  of  An- 
tioch,  and  Polycarp  of  Smyrna,  the  first  two  of 
whom  died  as  early  as  A.  D.  107.  Some  eight  or 
ten  epistles  of  these  venerable  men  to  the  churches 
they  had  served  still  remain  and  are  acknowledged 


ITS   HISTORY.  69 

as  genuine.  All  of  them  are  profuse  in  their 
quotations  from  the  Gospels,  Acts,  and  Epistles, 
as  we  now  have  them,  with  the  exception  of  two 
or  three  of  the  smaller  books.  These  quotations 
are  not,  indeed,  usually  in  the  form  of  express  re- 
ference, citing  chapter  and  verse,  but  they  are  no 
less  unmistakable.  A  great  many  of  the  peculiar 
phrases,  to  be  found  nowhere  else,  are  repeated, 
with  allusions  to  "the  Gospel,"  "the  Apostle," 
"the  glorious  and  blessed  Paul,  who,  when  he  was 
among  you,  taught  face  to  face,  and  when  absent 
sent  you  some  letters,"  "the  holy  Epistles,"  etc. 
No  one  can  read  these  writings  without  feeling 
how  deeply  imbued  their  authors  were  with  the 
phraseology  of  the  New  Testament  books. 

During  the  next  fifty  years  —  A.  D.  100-150  — 
these  references  and  quotations  were  greatly  mul- 
tiplied. One  of  the  most  illustrious  fathers  was 
Justin  Martyr,  born  in  103,  martyred  in  167.  In 
his  apology  for  the  Christians,  addressed  to  the 
Emperor  Antonine  in  149,  he  says,  speaking  of 
them  generally :  "  They  read  the  memoirs  of  the 
apostles  or  the  Gospels ;  they  read  them  each 
Sunday  in  the  cities  and  in  the  rural  districts; 
they  read  them  with  the  books  of  the  prophets ; 
and  in  every  assembly  where  they  had  been  read, 
the  president  took  the  subject  of  his  exhortations 
from  them."  He  makes  a  distinction  between  the 
two  Gospels  that  were  written  by  apostles  and  the 
two   which    were    written    by   their    companions 


TO  our  father's  book. 

(Mark  and  Luke).  He  says,  "There  is  among  us 
a  man  named  John,  one  of  the  apostles  of  Christ, 
who,  in  a  Revelation  (apocalypse)  which  was 
made  to  him,  prophesied  that  believers  in  Christ 
shall  pass  a  thousand  years  in  Jerusalem."  More 
than  seventy  similar  references  and  quotations  are 
counted  in  the  fragments  of  his  writings  now  re- 
maining. 

Even  Celsus,  the  famous  pagan  enemy  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  several  of  the  so-called  heretics  of  that 
age,  bear  incidental  testimony  to  the  existence  and 
repute  of  these  sacred  writings.  They  quote 
them,  indeed,  to  oppose  and  often  to  revile  them, 
but  their  evidence  for  that  very  reason  is  more 
weighty  in  proof  of  the  fact  that  they  existed 
and  were  regarded  as  inspired. 

The  next  half  century  — A.  D.  150-200  — pre- 
sents us  the  names  of  those  eminent  fathers, 
Irenseus,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Tertullian, 
who  attest  the  existence  and  authority  of  our  New 
Testament  books  in  a  multitude  of  quotations. 
We  have  no  space  for  even  a  tithe  of  them.  Iren- 
a3us  wrote  a  long  chapter  expressly  to  prove  that 
there  were  four  and  only  four  Gospels.  He  cites 
the  Acts  sixt}r-four  times,  and  shows  its  corre- 
spondences with  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  He  quotes 
all  these  Epistles  by  name  except  Philemon,  and 
several  hundred  times  in  the  aggregate.  Clement, 
in  a  single  work,  quotes  sentences  from  all  the 
Gospels,    the    Acts,   all    Paul's   Epistles,    except 


ITS   HISTOIIY.  71 

Philemon,  1  Peter,  1  and  2  John,  Jude,  Hebrews, 
and  Revelation.  Tertullian  was  a  voluminous 
writer,  and  in  all  his  works  constantly  refers  to 
these  writings  as  the  "  Scriptures,"  the  "  New  Tes- 
tament," and  "the  word  of  the  Creator."  He 
quotes  all  the  books  as  we  have  them,  except  per- 
haps the  Epistle  of  James.  Lardner  remarks  : 
"The  citations  from  the  New  Testament  by  this 
father  alone  are  more  extensive  and  more  abun- 
dant than  those  from  the  books  of  Cicero  by  all 
the  writers  of  every  class  and  age." 

We  have  room  to  mention  only  one  more,  the 
illustrious  Origen,  who  was  born  in  A.  D.  185  and 
died  A.  D.  254.  He  was  the  most  learned  man  of 
his  age,  an  historian,  a  public  catechiser,  a  com- 
mentator. He  edited  the  famous  Hexapla,  or 
Bible  in  six  languages,  and  wrote  a  commentary 
on  the  entire  Scriptures.  According  to  Eusebius, 
his  Notes  and  Homilies  on  Matthew  filled  twenty- 
five  books ;  on  Luke  five,  besides  homilies  in 
Latin ;  on  John,  thirty-two  ;  on  Acts,  one  ;  on 
Romans,  twenty ;  on  Corinthians,  Ephesians,  and 
Colossians,  many ;  on  Galatians,  five  ;  on  1  Thes- 
salonians  and  Titus,  several ;  on  Hebrews,  several ; 
on  Revelation,  one.  Besides  these  immense  la- 
bors, he  has  left  two  formal  catalogues  of  the  New 
Testament  books,  both  of  them  including  the  same 
we  now  have,  though  one  of  them  says  that  doubts 
were  entertained  of  some  smaller  books,  of  which 
we  will  speak  hereafter. 


72  our  father's  book. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  adduce  testimony  of  later 
date,  which  might  be  done  to  any  extent.  After 
A.D.  200  they  were  multiplied  greatly.  The  his- 
torians of  the  church  gave  numerous  catalogues  of 
the  books  received  in  the  East,  of  those  received 
in  the  West,  and  of  those  received  by  the  whole 
church.  There  are  eleven  such  catalogues  of  the 
fourth  century,  of  which  two  were  from  councils, 
besides  several  from  authors  which  are  probably 
unauthentic. 

Finally,  the  Emperor  Constautine,  about  A.D. 
381,  by  imperial  command  caused  fifty  copies  of 
the  New  Testament  to  be  made  with  the  greatest 
care  upon  parchment  at  his  own  expense,  for  the 
public  use  of  the  churches  of  his  empire.  This 
command  was  executed  by  Eusebius,  bishop  of 
Csesarea  and  the  biographer  of  the  Emperor,  and 
of  course  with  all  the  care  required  by  a  commis- 
sion so  important.  At  that  time  the  canon  had 
become  as  well  settled  as  it  is  now,  and  identical 
with  it.  It  is  the  conjecture  of  Prof.  Tischendorf, 
the  distinguished  discoverer  of  the  precious  manu- 
script in  the  convent  of  St.  Catharine  at  Mount 
Sinai,  that  it  is  one  of  those  identical  copies,  pre- 
sented to  the  convent  by  its  founder,  the  Emperor 
Justinian. 

The  New  Testament,  then,  comes  to  us  upon  the 
unanimous  testimony  of  the  churches  as  early  as 
the  very  first  century.  Consider  the  significance 
of  this  fact. 


ITS  HISTORY  73 

1.  It  cannot  be  questioned  that  the  churches 
were  competent  to  decide  upon  the  character  and 
claims  of  those  writings. 

It  is  not  alwaj^s  remembered  how  extensive 
were  the  personal  labors  of  the  apostles  and  their 
companions  in  preaching  the  gospel.  Our  Lord 
had  declared  that  this  should  be  done  among  all 
nations  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  (Mark  13 : 
10)  ;  and  Paul  expressly  affirms  that  it  had  been 
done  (Rom.  16:  26;  Col.  1:  23).  Bearing  this 
in  mind,  we  see  how  well  qualified  the  churches 
were  which  originated  in  such  labors  to  determine 
the  genuineness  of  the  writings  that  appeared 
under  the  names  of  their  first  instructors.  Take 
one  of  Paul's  epistles,  for  instance,  —  say  the  ear- 
liest of  all,  the  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians.  Notice 
the  many  allusions  in  it  to  his  ministry  among 
them,  its  time  and  circumstances,  what  he  said  to 
them,  his  message  to  Timothy  and  the  reply  that 
came  back,  their  own  experiences  and  faults,  and 
all  his  mingled  reproofs  and  commendations,  and 
we  perceive  how  impossible  it  is  that  they  should 
be  mistaken  as  to  its  coming  from  him,  or  as  to  his 
apostolic  right  and  authority  to  send  them  such 
a  letter.  The  same  thing  applies  for  substance  to 
all  the  epistles.  False  epistles  and  false  gospels 
could  no  more  have  been  successfully  imposed 
upon  the  churches  before  A.D.  100  than  a  false 
constitution  could  have  been  imposed  in  1789 
upon  the  several  States  of  our  Union. 


74  our  father's  book. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  also,  that  these  writings 
were,  with  possibly  some  exceptions,  designed  to 
be  encyclical,  i.  e.  to  be  passed  around  for  the 
common  instruction  of  all  the  churches.  Paul 
charged  the  Thessalonian  church  by  the  Lord  that 
his  communication  should  be  read  by  all  the  holy 
brethren  (1  Thess.  5:  27).  He  directed  the  Colos- 
sians  to  exchange  their  epistle  with  that  of  their 
neighbors,  the  Laodiceans  (Col.  4:  1G),  which 
latter,  however,  is  now  lost,  unless,  as  has  been 
suggested,  it  was  the  same  as  our  present  epistle 
to  the  Ephesians.  Peter's  allusion  to  "  all  Paul's 
epistles  "  (2  Pet.  3:16)  shows  how  extensively 
they  were  known  among  the  churches  of  the  Dis- 
persion at  that  early  date.  The  Apocalypse  was 
ordered  to  be  sent  to  the  seven  churches  in  Asia, 
but  to  those  evidently  as  representatives  of  all 
others. 

Still  another  fact  of  importance  is  that  at  a  very 
early  date  distinguished  writers  and  historians 
traveled  extensively  from  country  to  country  for 
the  very  purpose  of  ascertaining  what  sacred  books 
were  in  use  among  the  several  churches  of  each. 
Justin  Martyr,  Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  and  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  all  traveled  through  Asia  Minor, 
Egypt,  and  Greece  ;  of  course,  communicating  as 
well  as  gaining  a  knowledge  of  the  subject. 
Thus  the  churches  learned  what  had  been  ac- 
cepted by  their  sister  churches,  and  speedily  the 
whole  body  of   them  in  all  countries  came  into 


ITS   HISTORY.  75 

near  agreement  in  this  matter.  The  common  code 
of  the  New  Testament  became  as  well  fixed  as 
that  of  the  Old,  and  as  generally  recognized. 

In  this  fact,  then,  of  the  universal  acceptance 
of  our  New  Testament  books  by  the  churches,  we 
have  testimony  which  was  contemporary  with  their 
production,  and  in  every  way  most  competent  to 
decide  in  respect  to  their  character.  Writings 
which  came  from  the  apostles  were,  of  course, 
accepted  at  once.  All  Christians  knew  that  these 
were  inspired  men,  and  specially  commissioned 
to  teach  "  whatsoever  the  Lord  commanded 
them."  If  there  were  any  which  did  not  come 
from  the  apostles,  they  were  scrutinized  very 
closely.  Mark  was  accepted  because  he  was  the 
well-known  companion  and  "  interpreter"  of  Peter, 
and  his  Gospel  was  therefore  substantially  Peter's 
Gospel.  Luke  held  a  similar  relation  to  Paul, 
so  that  his  Gospel  and  the  Acts  were  virtually 
Paul's.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  not  bear- 
ing an  apostle's  name,  was  held  in  doubt  for  a 
little  while  by  some,  but  full  inquiry  and  inter- 
change of  views  finally  led  to  its  acceptance,  though 
we  do  not  know  exactly  on  what  ground  other 
than  that,  if  not  from  an  apostle,  it  was  in  full 
accord  with  the  apostolic  writings,  and  had  apos- 
tolic approval.  James  and  Jude  were  our  Lord's 
brothers,  the  former  the  pastor  of  the  mother- 
church  at  Jerusalem,  and  both  the  intimate  com- 
panions of  the  apostles,  and  partakers  of  the  inspi- 


76  our  father's  book. 

ration  bestowed  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  Thus 
the  early  churches  knew  both  the  authors  of  these 
books  and  their  genuineness,  and  their  testimony 
comes  to  us  with  a  degree  of  force  which  admits 
no  ground  for  any  reasonable  doubt. 

2.  Not  only  was  this  competent  testimony,  but 
it  was  given  under  the  influence  of  motives  which 
insured  the  highest  truthfulness. 

For,  let  us  remember,  that  these  early  churches 
based  their  own  spiritual  hopes  on  the  truth  of 
these  writings.  The  converts  from  Judaism 
turned  their  backs  on  the  venerable  institutions  of 
Moses,  which  they  had  been  taught  to  believe,  as 
all  their  countrymen  did  believe,  were  the  only 
means  of  salvation.  Gentile  converts  forsook  the 
wisdom  of  sages  for  the  foolishness  of  the  cross. 
Neither  could  have  done  this  if  they  had  not  been 
sure  of  the  premises  on  which  their  new  faith  was 
founded.  No  man  in  his  senses  ever  rested  his 
soul's  everlasting  interests  on  grounds  which  he 
knew  had  no  foundation  in  truth. 

This  acceptance  of  Christianity,  moreover,  was 
social  separation  from  all  that  they  held  dear.  Jews 
anathematized  them  as  heretics  ;  Gentiles  branded 
them  as  fools.  They  were  held  and  treated  as  the 
ofTscouring  of  all  things.  It  was  literally  true 
that  to  become  a  Christian,  a  man  must  "  hate  his 
father  and  mother,  and  wife  and  children,  and 
brethren  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also." 
We  are  very  certain  that  they  who  had  to  accept 


ITS  HISTORY.  77 

the  new  faith  upon  such  a  penalty  would  scrutinize 
its  foundations  with  all  possible  care.  Documents 
of  doubtful  authenticity  or  genuineness  or  author- 
ity could  not  stand  against  the  intense  yearnings 
of  human  hearts  over  separations  like  these. 

Nay,  more  ;  to  accept  the  words  of  Peter  and  Paul 
and  John,  and  obey  them,  was,  in  vast  multitudes 
of  instances,  to  doom  the  believer  to  martyrdom. 
It  was  to  be  stoned  at  Jerusalem,  to  be  scourged 
at  Damascus,  to  be  thrown  to  wild  beasts  in  the 
Coliseum,  or  be  crucified  in  the  gardens  of  Nero 
at  Rome.  Now,  men  and  women  do  not  do  such 
things  in  a  cause  which  they  know  is  a  doubtful 
one.  They  do  not  die  the  most  horrible  deaths  in 
obedience  to  authority  which  they  know  may  be 
questioned.  Let  them  have  rejected  the  Christian 
writings ;  let  them  have  said  the  Evangelists  wrote 
myths,  and  Paul  was  mistaken,  and  the  like  (and 
remember  they  had  the  best  possible  opportunities 
for  knowing  if  it  was  so),  then  they  would  have 
had  no  trouble.  Life  would  have  been  secure  ; 
friends  would  have  smiled  upon  them ;  priests 
and  governors  would  have  loaded  them  with 
honors.  Instead  of  this  they  believed,  and  died. 
And  every  drop  of  their  blood,  every  pang  suffered 
in  the  flames  and  on  the  cross,  attested  that  they 
knew  the  teachings  they  had  received  were  true. 
The  sacred  writings  they  had  believed  were  gen- 
uine, were  inspired,  were  divine. 

Such,  then,  is  the  testimony  which  has  come  to 


78  our  father's  book. 

us  from  the  early  churches  in  behalf  of  these  New 
Testament  books.  It  is  competent  testimony,  and 
it  is  honest.  From  the  very  early  period  in  which 
it  comes  ;  from  the  opportunities  they  had  of  know- 
ing the  facts ;  from  the  infinite  motives  they  were 
under  to  inquire  carefully  and  make  a  correct 
judgment,  a  conclusion  which  we  know  they 
made,  in  the  clear  consciousness  that  it  would 
take  them  to  the  martyr's  stake ;  from  the  absolute 
unanimity  of  their  testimony,  there  being  not  a 
church  in  all  Christendom  in  any  age  that  ever 
dissented  from  it,  however  much  they  may  have 
differed  in  everything  else,  —  from  all  these  facts 
combined,  the  result  comes  to  us  with  irresistible 
force  of  conviction  that  these  writings  are  what 
they  purport  to  be.  They  were  from  the  pens  of 
men  who  were  plenarily  authorized  to  teach  in 
the  name  of  Christ,  and  who  spake  and  wrote  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  Their 
words  are  the  word  of  God. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ITS  DIVINE   AUTHORITY. 

We  have  thus  sketched  in  outline  the  history 
of  the  Bible,  both  as  a  whole  and  in  its  several 
parts,  beginning  at  our  own  day,  and  going  back 
through  the  several  stages  of  translation,  the  for- 
mation of  the  canon,  and  the  original  authorship. 
It  devolves  on  us  now  to  show  how  this  is  a  Divine 
gift,  brought  to  us  through  all  this  human  history 
by  God,  and  constituting  what  we  have  called 
«  Our  Father's  Book." 

The  claim  thus  made  for  it  involves  what  is 
technicallv  known  as  the  doctrine  of  Inspiration. 
As  usually  treated,  it  is  one  of  no  little  difficulty, 
giving  rise  to  considerable  differences  of  opinion, 
both  as  to  the  fact  itself  and  its  nature.  That 
difficulty,  as  it  seems  to  us,  results  largely  from  a 
too-restricted  view  of  the  word  "  inspiration,"  as 
implying  always  a  direct  divine  influence  upon 
the  minds  of  the  writers,  dictating  the  words  they 
should  record,  or  the  thoughts,  or  both.  Such  an 
influence  does  not  seem  to  be  asserted,  at  least  in 
all  cases,  by  the  book  itself,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  it 
be  susceptible  of  proof.     Inasmuch,  then,  as  our 

79 


80  our  father's  book. 

greatest  difficulty  lies  precisely  here,  let  us,  before 
we  attempt  the  proof  of  the  doctrine,  endeavor  to 
get  a  clear  idea  of  what  the  term  means. 

Section  I. 

Nature  of  Inspiration. 

We  can  best  give  our  view  of  this  subject  by 
the  help  of  the  illustration  before  used.  Suppose 
an  intelligent  boy  of  fifteen  should  receive  a  birth- 
day gift  of  books  from  his  father.  They  are  of 
various  kinds  and  from  many  authors,  and  they  are 
accompanied  by  a  note  expressive  of  his  father's 
affection,  and  saying  that  they  are  given  in  the 
hope  of  affording  him  valuable  instruction  as  to 
his  course  in  life.  And  suppose  that  a  friend, 
examining  these  books  and  learning  of  their  con- 
tents, should  express  grave  doubts  whether  they 
actually  came  from  his  father. 

"  Your  father  certainly  did  not  write  these." 

"  No,  but  they  came  to  me  from  him  just  the 
same." 

"  But  they  are  not  all  books  of  instruction  ;  here 
are  history  and  poetry  and  letters  and  old  records, 
etc.  You  can  't  call  these  your  father's  counsels 
to  you,  can  you?" 

"Certainly,  that  is  the  form  he  chose  to  put 
them  in ;  that  is  the  way  he  wants  to  convey  his 
will.  He  gave  them  to  me  for  that  purpose.  Here 
is  his  own  declaration  to  that  effect." 


ITS  DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  81 

u  But  there  is  a  small  book  in  the  midst  of  the 
set  of  which  nobody  knows  the  origin.  There  is 
no  name  nor  date  to  it ;  you  don't  suppose  that 
came  from  your  father,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Why  not  ?  If  I  don't  know  who  wrote  it  or 
when,  perhaps  he  does.  At  any  rate,  he  judged 
it  suitable  for  his  purpose,  and  so  he  selected  and 
put  it  into  the  collection.  It  came  with  the  other 
books,  and  is  from  him,  just  as  much  as  they  are." 

"  Well,  but  here  is  one  which  contains  false  and 
pernicious  things.  It  says  the  world  was  made  in 
six  days,  and  your  father  knows  it  was  not.  He 
understands  the  science  of  geology,  and  would 
not  give  you  to  read  the  crude  ideas  and  guesses 
of  former  days  about  such  things.  There  is  an- 
other that  tells  of  dreadful  wars  and  bloodshed ; 
of  fearful  cruelties  practiced  upon  conquered  peo- 
ples, and  of  the  false  and  barbarous  sentiments 
which  prevailed  in  those  ignorant  ages,  even 
among  the  best  people  of  those  times.  Such  a 
book  as  that  could  not  have  come  from  your 
father?" 

"  But  it  did.  I  do  not  know  about  there  being 
anything  untrue  in  form,  or  false  in  sentiment 
and  practice  ;  but  even  if  there  is,  can  I  not  learn 
from  these  as  well  as  from  the  opposite  ?  I  sup- 
pose my  father  thought  I  had  common  sense,  and 
could  distinguish  between  what  was  good  and  bad 
in  itself.  I  certainly  am  not  silly  enough  to  imag- 
ine that,  because  such  and  such  things  are  inserted 


82  our  father's  book. 

iii  these  books,  he  approves  of  them,  or  would 
want  to  have  me  do  or  be  like  them.  My  father 
has  given  them  to  me  for  my  instruction,  and 
they  are  infinitely  better  than  they  would  be  if 
they  were  all  sermons  and  moral  essays  and  com- 
mands, of  which  I  should  be  heartily  sick  in  a 
single  week." 

It  is  needless  to  pursue  this  imaginary  conversa- 
tion further ;  indeed,  we  owe  an  apology  to  our 
readers  for  having  supposed  it  necessary  to  intro- 
duce it  at  all.  And  yet  upon  this  simple  point 
has  turned  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  in  admit- 
ting the  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  If  God  did  not 
with  his  own  fingers  write  it,  or  if  he  did  not  dic- 
tate it  word  by  word  to  those  that  did,  how  can  it 
have  come  from  him  ?  And  our  answer  is,  it  came 
because  what  he  did  not  write  or  dictate  he  selected 
for  the  purpose.  If  a  man  may  make  up  a  library 
in  that  way,  so  may  God.  And  a  library  so  made 
up  and  so  given  becomes  just  as  much  his  gift, 
expressive  of  his  will,  and  clothed  with  his  author- 
ity, as  if  it  had  been  graven  with  his  divine  fingers 
on  the  tablets  of  stone. 

Consider  how  many  things  are  involved  in  it. 

1.  It  might  include  the  composition  of  the 
books,  or  a  part  of  them,  by  personal  writing  or 
through  an  amanuensis.  This  mode,  of  course,  is 
not  excluded;  we  only  insist  that  it  is  not  the 
only  one,  or  indispensable.  So  there  are  parts  of 
the   Bible  which  were    God's  own  words,  taken 


***  DO 

ITS  DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  83 

down  from  his  lips  or  given  by  dictation  through 
prophets  and  apostles. 

2.  It  would  involve  the  selection  and  instruc- 
tion of  those  who  were  to  make  up  the  library ; 
persons  of  experience  and  discretion,  to  whom  he 
might  communicate  his  wishes,  and  who  would 
know  best  what  would  subserve  the  end  in  view. 
Such  men  were  selected  and  employed  in  making 
up  the  Bible ;  prophets  and  learned  scribes  in  the 
ancient  church,  and  holy  fathers  who  had  known 
the  apostles  or  their  disciples  in  the  new.  These 
men  were  imbued  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
were  the  representatives  of  the  collective  body  of 
God's  people  in  whom  the  Spirit  has  dwelt  from 
age  to  age,  and  which  is  affirmed  to  be  "  the  pillar 
and  ground  of  the  truth."  Even,  therefore,  though 
we  knew  nothing  of  the  original  authors,  yet  any 
body  of  writing  which  the  whole  church  accepted 
spontaneously  to  meet  its  spiritual  wants  and  to 
be  the  vehicle  of  its  communion  with  God  may 
safely  be  regarded  as  more  certainly  given  by  him 
than  if  it  only  bore  the  prestige  of  a  single  great 
name,  —  as  Ezra,  or  Isaiah,  or  David,  or  Samuel, 
or  Moses.  It  would,  indeed,  include  the  combined 
inspiration  of  all,  inasmuch  as  the  inspiration  of 
the  whole  church  must  be  greater  than  that  of  a 
part  of  it. 

3.  It  would  involve  the  transmission  of  the  li- 
brary to  the  son,  and,  to  accomplish  this,  its  careful 
protection  against  being  lost,  or  stolen,  or  damaged 


oa  ^* 

84  OUR   FATHERS   BOOK. 

in  any  way.  Wonderful  has  been  the  evidence  of 
God's  ownership  of  the  Bible.  No  other  book  of 
the  age  of  Moses,  or  David,  or  Isaiah,  unless  in 
the  cerements  of  some  forgotten  mummy,  has  ever 
come  down  to  our  day.  Of  none  of  the  age  of 
the  New  Testament  has  one  been  preserved  in 
such  integrity.  It  has  ever  had  innumerable 
enemies,  the  malice  of  persecutors,  the  casualties 
of  war  and  fire,  the  unwearied  assaults  of  unbe- 
lievers in  numberless  forms,  nevertheless  the  book 
has  survived  through  all.  Nay,  it  is  as  young  and 
fresh  as  if  it  came  yesterday  from  the  press,  and  is 
diffusing  itself  with  a  rapidity  surpassing  that  of 
any  other  period,  making  its  existence,  its  ubi- 
quity, and  moral  power  over  men  and  nations,  the 
most  wonderful  phenomenon  of  the  age. 

Now,  all  these  things  go  together  to  make  up 
that  grand  result,  —  the  gift  of  God's  word  to 
men.  We  include  them  all  in  that  much  misap- 
prehended word,  "inspiration."  It  comprehends 
whatever  Our  Father  has  done  to  provide  for  us 
this  precious  and  venerated  volume.  It  has  oper- 
ated through  a  long  series  of  years,  and  in  a  vari- 
ety of  ways.  It  caused  some  to  write,  some  to 
compile,  some  to  copy,  some  to  adopt  unchanged. 
The  result  is  this  Book.  The  waters  of  a  hundred 
fountains  have  been  gathered  to  supply  its  ample 
stream.  Those  fountains  may  be  remote,  obscure, 
unknown  to  men.  Whether  they  were  natural  or 
artificial,  living  springs  evoked  from  the  recesses 


ITS  DIVINE   AUTHORITY.  85 

of  the  hills  by  the  Creator's  own  hand,  or  rising 
from  deep  wells  dug  by  patriarch  or  prophet,  they 
alike  flow  along  channels  prepared  for  them  by  a 
Divine  hand,  till  they  meet  and  mingle  in  this 
"  river  of  the  water  of  life." 

Bearing  in  mind,  then,  these  distinctions,  and 
definitions  of  the  term  "  inspiration,"  we  claim  for 
this  Book  the  following  things  :  — 

1.  The  Bible  is  an  inspired  Booh.  It  is  the 
work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  acting  through  the  ages 
to  this  result,  the  production  of  works  which,  each 
in  its  day,  served  for  the  divine  guidance  of  those 
to  whom  they  were  sent,  and  at  length,  when  col- 
lected and  completed  in  one  volume,  were  given 
to  the  world  to  be  to  them  through  all  time  "  the 
oracles  of  God." 

2.  The  Bible  is  ivholly  inspired.  No  matter  as 
to  the  remote  origin  or  composition  of  some  por- 
tions of  it,  the  Divine  Spirit  by  adoption,  if  not  by 
dictation,  made  them  his  own,  and  placed  them  in 
this  book  for  mankind.  The  proof  that  he  did  so 
we  will  consider  at  another  time  ;  we  now  simply 
assume  it.  And  this  divine  action  —  which  we 
call  Inspiration — extended  to  all  and  every  part 
of  it.  If  a  father's  Christmas  present  included 
sixty-seven  volumes,  they  were  all  selected  and 
put  there  by  him  alike,  the  first,  the  fifth,  the 
twentieth ;  the  large  ones  and  the  small  ones  ;  the 
history  as  well  as  the  prophecy ;  the  songs  as  well 
as  the  essays;  the  anonymous  as  well  as  those 


86  our  father's  book. 

whose  authors  appended  their  names.  To  attempt 
to  single  out  a  portion  as  the  father's  gift  and 
exclude  the  rest  is  a  simple  impertinence,  insulting 
to  him  as  implying  that  he  did  not  know  what  was 
best  for  the  purpose  in  view. 

3.  The  Bible  is  verbally  inspired.  That  is,  the 
words  were  given  to  men  just  as  truly  as  the 
thoughts.  Indeed,  it  is  the  words  which  make  up 
the  Book,  and  you  could  not  have  the  Book  with- 
out the  words.  In  selecting  a  volume  to  put  into 
the  library,  the  father  selects  the  words  which  are 
in  the  volume.  If  it  is  in  rhyme,  he  selects  the 
rhymes ;  if  an  acrostic,  like  several  of  the  Psalms, 
he  selects  the  acrostic ;  if  a  quotation  in  another 
language,  as  in  Mark  5 :  41,  or  1  Cor.  16 :  22,  he 
selects  the  quotation  ;  if  in  the  singular  number, 
as  in  Gal.  3 :  16,  he  adopts  that  number.  So  in 
all  cases.  Whatever  the  Book  is,  that  is  his  gift 
to  us.  Of  course,  we  have  reference  to  the  origi- 
nals, not  our  English  translation;  and  the  originals 
in  their  purity,  not  to  any  errors  which  have  crept 
in  by  transcribing  or  accident  of  any  sort. 

4.  Once  more,  the  Bible,  as  an  inspired  book,  is 
complete.  That  is,  in  legal  phrase,  as  a  written 
revelation,  it  contains  "  the  truth,  the  whole  truth, 
and  nothing  but  the  truth."  There  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  any  thing  which  was  ever  intended 
to  be  a  part  of  it  has  been  lost  out,  nor  that  any 
thing  now  in  it  was  not  intended  to  be  there.  The 
volume  of  a  father's  letters  contains  all  that  he 


ITS  DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  87 

wrote  for  it,  and  contains  nothing  else.  The  birth- 
day gift  is  complete,  just  as  the  loving  Giver  de- 
signed it. 

Section  II. 

Proofs  of  Inspiration, 

The  way  is  now  prepared  for  us  to  consider  the 
evidence  of  the  fact  of  inspiration,  which  has  here- 
tofore been  assumed  while  we  exhibited  its  char- 
acteristics and  history. 

The  subject  in  its  entire  range  is  very  wide ;  its 
details  innumerable.     A  few  considerations  from 
the  form  and  method  of  the  book  and  its  uninter- 
rupted transmission  to  us  through  so  many  ages 
have  been  already  presented.     Very  much  more 
might  be  shown  of  the  exalted  character  of  the 
system  of  truth  which  it  contains,  the  wisdom  and 
beneficence  of  its  laws,  the  purity  of  its  morals, 
and  the  grace  displayed  in  the  plan  of  salvation 
it   reveals  for  mankind.     We    cannot   enter  into 
these   matters  here,   but  must  confine  ourselves 
to  a  single  topic  which  by  all  Christians  is  wont 
to  be  considered  the  most  direct  and  conclusive 
so  far  as  relates  to  the  Old  Testament,  viz.,  the 
testimony  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.     It  is  not,  of 
course,  the  evidence  that  is  to  be  urged  against 
atheists  and  infidels,  who  reject  the  authority  of 
Christ  himself,  but  it  will  be  admitted  as  sufficient 
by  all  who  pretend  to  be  Christians. 

We  have  before  shown  that  the  volume  of  what 


88  our  father's  book. 

we  call  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  both  in  the 
original  Hebrew  and  in  the  venerable  Greek  ver- 
sion of  the  Septuagint,  was  in  common  use  among 
the  Jews  in  the  time  of  our  Saviour.  Everybody 
knows  that  it  was  regarded  by  them  as  the  word 
of  God.  Josephus  says,  "  We  have  twenty-two 
books  which  are  justly  credited  as  divine."  Philo 
calls  them  the  "  sacred  Books,"  the  "  most  holy 
Writing,"  the  "  Oracle  of  God."  The  New  Tes- 
tament everywhere  shows  us  in  what  estimation  it 
was  held  by  all  classes.  The  Talmud s  and  Rab- 
binical writings  are  simply  commentaries  and 
explanations  designed  to  show  its  meaning  and 
authority.  Even  the  superstitions  that  were  in- 
dulged in  respecting  it  only  the  more  strikingly 
demonstrate  their  veneration  for  what  was  to  them 
God's  word,  which  might  not  be  added  to  or 
diminished  by  so  much  as  a  single  letter.  Thus 
the  Talmuds  say  that  when  God  changed  the 
name  of  Abraham's  wife  from  Sarai  to  Sarah,  he 
took  care  to  save  the  letter  *  (Heb.  yod*),  from 
being  lost  because  it  had  been  written  in,  and 
was,  therefore,  a  part  of  the  law.  He  prefixed  it 
to  the  name  of  Hoshea,  the  aid  and  successor  of 
Moses,  making  it  Iehoshuah  (Joshua).  It  had 
been  at  the  end  of  a  woman's  name,  but  was  now 
honored  in  being  put  in  front  of  the  man's. 

It  was  amid  such  views  of  the  sacred  volume, 
and  into  such  beliefs  of  its  origin  and  authority, 
that  our   Lord  Jesus   Christ  was  educated.      Of 


ITS   DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  89 

course,  he  rejected  the  superstitions  and  false 
interpretations  that  prevailed,  but  that  he  accepted 
its  divine  character  is  evident  from  all  his  words 
and  conduct.  Says  Canon  Geikie,  "  Mary  and 
Joseph,  we  can  scarcely  doubt,  were  themselves 
the  earliest  teachers  of  Jesus.  At  their  knees  he 
must  first  have  learned  to  read  the  Scriptures. 
Pious  Jewish  parents  took  especial  care  to  have  a 
manuscript  of  the  Law  in  the  old  Hebrew  charac- 
ters, as  their  especial  domestic  treasure.  Even  so 
early  as  the  Asmonean  kings,  B.  C.  163,  such  rolls 
were  so  common  in  private  houses  that  the  fury 
of  the  Syrian  king,  who  wished  to  introduce  the 
Greek  customs  in  religion,  was  especial ly  directed 
against  them.  In  Joseph's  day  the  supreme  in- 
fluence of  the  Rabbis  and  Pharisees  must  have 
deepened  into  a  passion  the  desire  to  possess  such 
a  symbol  of  loyalty  to  the  faith  of  Israel.  Richer 
families  would  have  a  complete  copy  of  the  Old 
Testament  on  parchment,  or  on  Egyptian  papyrus. 
Humble  homes  would  boast  a  copy  of  the  Law  or 
a  Psalter,  and  all  alike  gloried  in  the  verses  on 
their  door-posts  and  in  their  phylacteries.  Chil- 
dren had  small  rolls  containing  the  S'chema,  or 
the  Hallel,  or  the  history  of  creation  to  the  flood, 
or  the  first  eight  chapters  of  Leviticus. 

"  His  deep  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  shows 
itself  throughout  the  Gospels.  He  has  a  quotation 
ready  to  meet  every  hostile  question.  It  was  so 
profound  that  it  forced  even  his  enemies  to  recog- 


90  our  father's  book. 

nize  him  as  a  Rabbi.  His  frequent  retort  on  the 
Rabbis  themselves, —  '  Have  ye  not  read?  '  —  and 
the  deep  insight  into  the  spirit  of  Scripture  which 
opposes  to  rubrics  and  forms  the  quickening  power 
of  a  higher  life,  prove  how  intensely  he  must  have 
studied  the  sacred  books,  and  that  the  zeal  that 
drew  him  in  his  boyhood  to  the  temple  school  at 
Jerusalem  to  hear  them  explained  was  the  sacred 
passion  of  his  life.  In  the  Gospels  we  find  two 
quotations  from  Genesis,  two  from  Exodus,  one 
from  Numbers,  two  from  Deuteronomy,  seven  from 
the  Psalms,  five  from  Isaiah,  one  from  Hosea,  one 
from  Jonah,  two  from  Malachi,  two  from  Daniel, 
one  from  Micah,  and  one  from  Zechariah,  respec- 
tively. The  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  was  as 
familiar  to  him  as  the  '  Magnificat '  shows  it  to 
have  been  to  his  mother  Mary.  It  was  from  the 
clear  fountain  of  the  ancient  oracles  his  childhood 
drank  in  the  wisdom  that  cometh  from  above. 
They  had  been  his  only  school-book,  and  they 
were  the  unwearying  joy  of  his  own  life.  From 
them  he  taught  the  higher  spiritual  worship  which 
contrasted  so  strongly  with  the  worship  of  the 
letter.  It  was  to  them  he  appealed  when  he 
rejected  what  was  worthless  and  trifling  in  the  re- 
ligious teaching  of  his  day."  1 

To  require  a  distinct  formal  declaration  from 
one  who   habitually  employed   it   thus,  that   the 
Old  Testament  is  inspired,  would  be  absurd.     As 
1  Vol.  I.  chap.  xvi.  pp.  238,  239. 


ITS  DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  91 

well  demand  a  formal  declaration  in  all  our  courts 
that  the  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law.  It  was 
the  one  thing  that  was  assumed  as  a  matter  of 
course  ;  the  thing  that  nobody  disputed ;  the  first 
principle  of  all  authority  and  all  belief.  And  yet 
many  utterances  of  his  may  be  cited  which  are 
equivalent.     We  will  give  a  few  specimens. 

1.  He  declared  that  his  mission  was  not  to 
abrogate  or  weaken  its  authority.  "  Think  not 
that  I  came  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets;  I 
came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill."  Matt.  5  :  IT. 
"The  Law  and  the  Prophets"  was  a  common  desig- 
nation of  the  Scriptures,  as  sometimes  the  Law 
was  alone,  and  sometimes  the  fuller  title  "  The 
Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms."  Of  course, 
his  hearers  would  understand  him  as  referring  to 
that  collection  of  writings  which  had  then  been 
embraced  in  the  sacred  canon,  and  which  we  have 
in  a  single  volume.  It  was  important  to  him  in  the 
outset  of  his  ministry  thus  to  declare  that  he  did 
not  propose  to  teach  a  new  religion,  but  the  old 
one  in  a  purer  and  higher  form ;  to  develop  out 
of  that  sacred  source  of  all  wisdom  its  inner  spirit 
and  life,  and  so  to  fulfill,  i.  e.,  to  fill  out  and  com- 
plete, what  had  hitherto  been  apprehended  in  the 
letter.  Then  he  adds,  in  a  formula  of  the  most 
emphatic  confirmation,  "  For  verily  I  say  unto 
you,  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one  jot  or 
one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  away  from  the  law 
till  all  things  be  accomplished."    It  is  not  possible 


92  our  father's  book. 

to  conceive  of  any  higher  sanction  being  given  to 
a  book  than  this. 

2.  He  severely  reproved  the  Jews,  notwith- 
standing their  professed  reverence  for  the  divine 
commands,  for  making  it  void  through  their  tradi- 
tions. "  Well  did  Isaiah  prophesy  of  you, 
hypocrites.  Ye  leave  the  commandment  of  God 
and  hold  fast  the  tradition  of  men.  For  Moses 
said,  Honor  thy  father  and  mother,  and  he  that 
speaketh  evil  of  father  or  mother  let  him  die  the 
death,  thus  making  void  the  word  of  God  through 
your  tradition."  Mark  7:  6-13.  Observe,  here,  how 
Jesus  throws  the  sanctity  of  God's  word  over  the 
Pentateuch,  the  very  five  books  of  Moses  as  we 
have  them,  without  any  hint  of  a  question  as  to 
the  authorship  of  those  books.  So  we  may  say, 
whatever  the  criticism  of  our  day  may  conclude  as 
to  that  question,  if  the  Pentateuch  was  the  word 
of  God  to  Christ,  it  is  his  word  doubly  confirmed 
to  us. 

3.  He  commanded  the  Jews  to  search  the 
Scriptures  for  proof  of  the  validity  of  his  claims, 
and  declared  that  they  were  his  Father's  testi- 
mony, and  their  teachings  throughout  centered 
upon  him.  "  The  Father  which  sent  me,  he  hath 
borne  witness  of  me.  Search  the  Scriptures  — 
these  are  they  which  bear  witness  of  me.  I  receive 
not  glory  from  men."  John  5:  37-41.  "  All  things 
must  needs  be  fulfilled  which  are  written  in  the 
Law  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms, 


ITS   DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  93 

concerning  me.  Then  opened  he  their  minds  that 
they  might  understand  the  Scriptures.  And  he 
said  unto  them,  Thus  it  is  written  —  that  the 
Christ  should  sutler,"  etc.  Luke  24 :  44.  All  this 
is  without  meaning  but  upon  the  fundamental 
assumption  that  those  Scriptures  were  divine  ;  that 
they  revealed  the  mind  of  God,  and  were  to  be 
received  as  decisive  of  any  fact  to  which  they 
might  testify. 

4.  So,  in  defending  himself  against  the  accusa- 
tions of  his  enemies,  Christ  habitually  referred  to 
the  Scriptures  as  authoritative  and  final.  In 
calling  God  his  Father,  they  said  he  blasphemed, 
making  out  that  he  was  a  son  of  God.  "  Well,"  he 
replied,  "  your  law  calls  civil  magistrates  gods. 
Have  I  said  anything  worse  than  that?  Now  that 
was  the  word  of  God,  —  and  the  Scripture  cannot 
be  broken,"  —  i.  e.,  treated  as  void,  or  using 
terms  improperly.  The  particular  portion  of 
Scripture  alluded  to  in  this  case  wTas  Ps.  82:6. 
How  clearly  does  he  thus  attribute  to  the  entire 
volume  the  title  of  "the  Law,"  and  make  it  the 
divine  word,  and  the  standard  of  all  right  and 
propriety. 

But,  as  we  have  remarked,  it  is  needless  to  cite 
specific  formal  declarations  of  our  Lord  on  the 
point  before  us.  His  entire  course  of  teaching 
was  an  unfolding  and  amplification  of  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures  as  the  divine  charter  of  his 
mission,  the  foundation   of  the  new  kingdom  of 


94  our  father's  book. 

heaven,  which  was  to  be  built  on  the  everlasting 
covenant  of  God,  as  given  to  Abraham  and  Moses 
and  the  prophets. 

And  let  it  be  noted,  too,  that  this  recognition 
of  its  authority  extended  over  the  entire  volume. 
Never  does  he  single  out  one  part  of  it  at  the 
expense  of  another  part.  Never  does  he  distin- 
guish between  known  and  unknown  authors. 
Never  does  he  speak  of  those  who  were  more  and 
those  who  were  less  inspired.  Never  does  he 
concede  divine  guidance  to  those  that  recorded 
revelations  beyond  that  granted  to  those  that 
wrote  history,  or  compiled  genealogy,  or  edited 
fragments  of  antediluvian  tradition  and  song,  or 
told  unscientifically  the  story  of  creation  and  the 
fall  of  man,  or  tuned  the  sweet  pastoral  "  Song  of 
songs,  which  is  Solomon's."  If  he  did  not  quote 
from  every  one  of  them  for  doctrine,  for  reproof, 
for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness,  it 
was  not  because  he  did  not  recognize  their  place 
in  the  sacred  canon,  but  simply  because  they  did 
not  contain  what  was  relevant  to  the  matter  in 
hand.  He  made  no  difference  between  the  primary 
and  secondary  writer;  between  the  Elohist  and 
Jehovist ;  the  author  and  the  redactor  ;  the  Psalms 
which  celebrate  the  names  and  titles  of  Jehovah, 
and  the  book  of  the  beautiful  Jewish  queen,  in 
which  the  divine  name  does  not  once  occur.  To 
him  the  entire  volume  was  a  unit,  and  it  was  the 
Word  of  God.    The  temple  itself  was  made  up 


ITS   DIVINE   AUTHORITY.  95 

of  parts.  It  had  its  courts,  outer  and  inner ;  its 
gates,  some  more  and  some  less  beautiful ;  its  apart- 
ments of  ever-varying  use  and  dignity,  from  the 
closets  which  stored  wood  and  ashes  and  salt,  up 
to  the  awful,  unapproachable  Holy  of  Holies ;  but 
it  was  one  sacred,  august  edifice  throughout.  It 
was  the  house  of  God.  So  the  volume  of  the 
Scriptures,  amid  all  its  diversity  in  age,  style, 
contents,  authorship,  diction,  is  one  book,  God's 
gift  to  man,  that  he  may  be  made  wise  unto  salva- 
tion. This  book  was  our  Saviour's  Bible,  doubly 
sanctioned  to  us  in  his  acceptance  and  love,  and 
doubly  confirmed  to  us  by  his  own  divine  author- 
ity as  the  Word  of  God. 

Not  less  positive  and  abundant  were  the  similar 
testimonies  of  the  apostles,  whom  our  Lord  ap- 
pointed to  be  the  official  instructors  of  his  church, 
and  to  whom  he  gave  those  supernatural  gifts 
which  clothed  their  words  with  his  own  supreme 
authority. 

These  apostles  were  Jews,  and  as  such  shared 
in  those  opinions  respecting  the  Scriptures  which 
were  common  to  all  their  countrymen.  Nor  is 
there  any  evidence  that,  in  accepting  the  Christian 
faith,  their  views  in  this  respect  were  altered  in 
any  degree,  except  to  become  stronger  and  more 
reverent.  In  very  many  matters  of  their  Jewish 
training  their  opinions  underwent  great  change. 
The  whole  system  of  Mosaic  institutions  they  be- 
lieved to  be  superseded  by  the  gospel.     Rites  and 


96  our  father's  book. 

forms  which  they  had  been  taught  to  consider  as 
of  the  highest  sanctity  had  become  obsolete.  The 
way  of  salvation  and  the  divine  requirements 
of  men  were,  as  they  thought,  new.  But  the 
Scriptures  were  still  the  Word  of  G-od.  No  jot  of 
sanctity  or  authority  had  vanished  from  them. 
No  less  deference  was  to  be  paid  to  their  lightest 
utterance.  Nay,  when  St.  Paul,  after  showing  that 
Jews  as  well  as  Gentiles  were  alike  sinners  before 
God  notwithstanding  all  their  distinguishing  his- 
tory and  spiritual  privileges,  and  needed  the  same 
salvation  as  they,  put  into  the  mouth  of  an  objec- 
tor the  astonished  inquiry,  "  What  advantage  then 
hath  the  Jew,  and  what  is  the  profit  of  circum- 
cision ? "  he  answered  unhesitatingly  and  trium- 
phantly, "  Much  every  way ;  first  of  all  that  they 
were  entrusted  with  the  oracles  of  God  !  "  This  was 
the  highest  of  all  distinctions,  because  these  were 
the  most  holy  and  precious  of  all  gifts. 

The  testimony  of  the  apostles  to  the  point  be- 
fore us  is  so  abundant  and  varied  that  we  can  only 
give  specimens. 

1.  They  declare  that  these  writings  are  holy. 
Rom.  1:2.  "  The  gospel  which  God  promised 
afore  by  his  prophets  in  the  holy  Scriptures." 
2  Tim.  3:  15.  "From  a  child  thou  hast  known 
the  holy  Scriptures."  Observe  that  this  term  is 
applied  to  the  sacred  volume  collectively,  contain- 
ing the  very  same  books  which  we  have,  with  all 
their  diversity  of  authorship,  subjects,  style,  and 


ITS   DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  97 

character.     In  this  respect  they  all  stand  on  the 
same  footing ;  they  are  all  "  the  holy  writings." 

2.  They  affirm  that  these  Scriptures  are  inspired 
of  God.  2  Tim.  3  :  16.  "  Every  Scripture  inspired 
of  God  is  profitable,"  etc.  Here  the  assertion  is 
made  of  them  not  only  collectively  but  singly. 
They  are  taken  one  by  one,  and  "  every  one  "  de- 
clared to  proceed  from  the  divine  inbreathing. 
2  Pet.  1  :  21.  "  Men  spake  from  God,  being  moved 
by  the  Holy  Spirit."  Heb.  1:1.  "  God,  having  of 
old  time  spoken  unto  the  fathers  in  the  Prophets." 
Heb.  3:7.  "  The  Holy  Spirit  saith."  Rom.  16  :  26. 
"  By  the  Scriptures  of  the  prophets  according  to 
the  commandment  of  the  eternal  God."  Acts  1 :  16. 
"  The  Scriptures  which  the  Holy  Spirit  spake  be- 
fore by  the  mouth  of  David." 

3.  They  represent  the  utterances  of  the  Scrip- 
tures as  clothed  with  plenary  authority.  Whatever 
they  say  is  decisive.  Instances  without  number 
may  be  cited.  Acts  17 :  2.  "  For  three  Sabbath 
days  Paul  reasoned  with  them  from  the  Scrip- 
tures." Acts  17:10.  "They  searched  the  Scrip- 
tures daily  whether  these  things  were  so."  Rom. 
4:3.  "  What  saith  the  Scriptures  ?  "  1  Cor.  15 :  3. 
"Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures,"  etc.  Everywhere  in  the  Epistles,  the 
Scriptures  are  made  the  umpire  to  decide  doubt- 
ful points  and  confirm  the  statements  that  are 
put  forth. 

4.  They  attach  a  divine  authority  to  the  very 


98  our  father's  book. 

words,  and  even  the  grammatical  forms  of  words, 
in  the  sacred  writings.  In  Rom.  4 :  3,  the  doctrine 
of  justification  is  built  upon  the  word  "  counted  " 
(R.  V.  "  reckoned  ").  In  Rom.  6  :  2,  the  duty  of 
Christian  holiness  on  the  word  "  died."  In  Rom. 
12 :  27,  the  steadfastness  of  the  gospel  on  the 
single  Greek  word  translated  "  once  more."  In 
Gal.  3  :  16,  the  unity  of  the  church  of  God  on  the 
singular  number  of  the  word  "  seed,"  not  "  seeds." 
Can  we  doubt  what  was  the  habitual  way  of  re- 
garding this  volume  by  those  to  whom  its  very 
words  and  grammatical  forms  were  thus  sufficient 
to  determine  the  gravest  truths  of  doctrine  ? 

5.  They  assign  it  as  a  special  mark  of  high 
qualifications  as  a  teacher  that  one  is  "  mighty  in 
the  Scriptures."  Acts  18 :  24.  And  this,  which 
was  asserted  of  Apollos,  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
the  authorship  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is 
now  by  many  ascribed  to  him.  That  Epistle 
shows  a  familiarity  with  all  the  details  of  the 
Mosaic  institutions,  and  a  skill  in  developing  their 
spiritual  import,  which  well  entitle  its  writer  to 
such  a  designation. 

6.  They  constantly  represent  the  gospel  itself 
as  but  the  outcome  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures. 
Christ  himself  was  the  object  to  which  all  prophecy 
converged.  Acts  17 :  2.  "  Paul,  as  his  custom  was, 
for  three  Sabbath  days  reasoned  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, opening  and  alleging  that  it  behoved  the 
Christ  to  suffer  and  to  rise  again  from  the  dead." 


ITS   DIVINE   AUTHORITY.  99 

John  5  :  39.  "  These  are  they  which  bear  witness 
of  me."  1  Cor.  15  :  3,  4.  "  Christ  died  for  our  sins 
according  to  the  Scriptures."  He  "  was  buried 
and  rose  again  according  to  the  Scriptures."  The 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  devotes  itself  in  particular 
to  the  one  purpose  of  showing  that  all  the  Chris- 
tian doctrines  are  but  the  development  and  fruit- 
age of  the  earlier  system  revealed  in  the  rites  and 
record  of  the  Old  Testament.  Rom.  1:2.  "  The 
gospel  was  promised  afore  by  the  prophets  in  the 
holy  Scriptures."  The  evangelists,  in  recording 
the  works  and  sayings  of  Christ,  habitually  add, 
that  in  them  was  "  fulfilled  what  was  spoken  of 
the  Lord  by  the  prophets."  Thus  the  ancient 
writings  are  everywhere  made  the  fountain  from 
which  the  entire  new  dispensation  proceeds,  its 
divine  Head,  its  institutions,  its  teachings.  Even 
the  church  itself  is  built  "  upon  the  foundation  of 
the  aj)ostles  and  prophets,  Christ  Jesus  himself 
being  the  chief  corner-stone."     Eph.  3 :  20. 

7.  They  represent  the  Scriptures  to  be  a  safe 
and  sure  ground  on  which  to  build  our  faith  and 
hope.  2  Pet.  1 :  19.  "  We  have  the  more  sure 
word  of  prophecy,  whereunto  ye  do  well  to  take 
heed."  2  Tim.  3  :  16.  "  Every  Scripture  is  profit- 
able for  doctrine,  for  instruction  in  righteousness, 
that  the  man  of  God  may  be  complete,  furnished 
completely  unto  every  good  work."  "  The  holy 
Scriptures  which  are  able  to  make  thee  wise  unto 
salvation." 


100  our  father's  book. 

8.  They  declare  that  to  pervert  the  Scriptures 
is  to  endanger  the  soul.  2  Peter  3 :  16.  "  The 
ignorant  and  unsteadfast  wrest  Paul's  Epistles, 
as  they  do  the  other  Scriptures,  unto  their  own 
destruction." 

But  these  explicit  testimonies  of  the  apostles  in 
so  many  ways,  striking  as  they  are,  come  far  short 
of  exhibiting  the  whole  truth.  No  one  can  read 
their  writings  carefully  without  perceiving  that 
they  were  perfectly  imbued  in  thought  and  feel- 
ing with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Scriptures  in 
which  they  had  been  taught ;  and  if  we  may  so  say, 
were  in  their  spiritual  natures  as  much  the  product 
of  those  Scriptures  as  the  vegetation  is  the  product 
of  the  sunlight  in  which  it  has  its  life.  Professor 
Stuart,  on  the  Canon,  gives  over  six  hundred  in- 
stances of  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament  by 
the  writers  of  the  New.  He  says  :  "  No  one  who 
has  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  both  Testa- 
ments in  their  original  languages  can  possibly  fail 
to  recognize  the  numberless  transfers  of  the  spirit 
and  modes  of  expression  from  the  Old  to  the  New. 
It  is  a  thing  to  be  felt,  and  not  to  be  adequately 
described.  It  occurs  so  often  everywhere,  and  in 
respect  to  everything,  that  one  would  not  know 
where  to  begin  or  where  to  end  such  a  description. 
No  one  must  imagine  that  the  list  of  quotations  or 
cases  of  allusion  above  cited  conveys  to  him  any 
really  adequate  view  of  the  subject.  The  truth  is 
that  it  is  no  more  than  the  mere  beginning  of 


ITS   DIVINE  AUTHORITY.  101 

such  a  view.  But  it  presents  to  every  reader, 
whether  learned  or  unlearned,  what  is  palpable 
and  undeniable,  and  what  must  serve  to  convince 
a  candid  mind  that  the  New  Testament  writers 
everywhere  lean  upon,  or  stand  closely  connected 
with,  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament." 

The  evidence  now  advanced,  in  this  section  and 
the  last,  must,  we  are  sure,  be  sufficient  for  every 
one  who  accepts  the  declarations  of  our  Lord  himself 
and  his  apostles  that  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
are  the  Word  of  God.  Their  origin  and  authority 
were  derived  from  him.  Whatever  difficulties 
we  may  find  in  the  external  history,  and  in  the 
form,  structure,  and  diction  of  these  ancient  books, 
are  covered  by  these  clear  testimonies  of  those  who 
are  our  recognized  supreme  teachers  in  divine 
things.  Our  argument  is  not  with  the  atheist  or 
infidel,  who  reject  Christ  himself,  and  deny  that 
there  is  or  can  be  any  revelation,  or  any  God  to 
give  one.  We  write  for  Christians,  who  believe  in 
God  our  Father,  and  who  desire  to  see  his  name 
and  word  in  "  Our  Father's  Book." 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED. 

The  testimony  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  to  the 
divine  authority  of  the  Bible,  while  conceded  to 
be  sufficient  to  establish  the  fact,  leaves  still 
something  wanting  to  its  full  effect.  We  accept, 
of  course,  a  truth  of  which  Ave  are  assured  on 
competent  authority,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
adds  to  the  strength  of  our  convictions  if  we  can 
also  see  the  truth.  By  what  rule,  then,  can  we 
discern  what  is  divine  in  the  Bible  ?  How,  in  a 
book  that  is  confessedly  written  by  man,  and  is  so 
varied  in  its  contents,  can  we  discover  the  word 
of  God?  The  inquiry  is  needful,  not  only  to 
complete  our  study  of  its  inspiration,  but  also  to 
enable  us  to  ascertain  the  divine  thought  and  will 
for  our  own  spiritual  instruction. 

Some  years  ago  we  presented  to  a  lad  of  four- 
teen, as  a  birthday  gift,  one  of  A.  L.  O.  E.'s 
excellent  books  for  boys,  entitled,  "  The  Giant- 
Killer."  As  we  remember  it,  it  was  an  allegorical 
narrative  illustrating  the  mode  in  which  the 
faults  that  beset  that  period  of  life  may  be  over- 
come under  the  guise  of  a  warfare  against  the 
102 


THE   DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  103 

"  giants."  The  purpose  of  the  gift,  of  course,  was 
to  be  an  incentive  to  a  pure  and  manly  character. 
Suppose,  now,  it  had  been  asked  of  him,  what  did 
your  pastor  intend  to  teach  you  by  this  book  ? 
The  words  were  the  author's,  but  he  has  chosen 
them  to  convey  to  you  his  instruction.  What, 
then,  is  that  instruction  ?  The  answer,  evidently, 
must  be,  "  It  is  that  of  the  book  itself.  Whatso- 
ever the  book,  fairly  interpreted,  says,  that  he 
says." 

It  is  thus  that  we  answer  the  question,  how  we 
shall  discern  God's  Word  in  this  Book,  written  by 
man,  so  various  in  its  contents,  and  of  so  wide  a 
range  in  form,  date,  authorship,  etc.  Every  book 
composed  for  a  purpose  has  a  meaning.  Personi- 
fied, we  may  say  it  intends  to  teach  us  something. 
Apart  from  and  beyond  what  is  said  by  the 
individuals  mentioned  in  it,  or  what  is  cited  from 
another,  it  has  an  utterance  of  its  own,  which  by 
careful  consideration  can  be  distinguished  from  all 
others,  and  which  constitutes  the  proper  meaning 
of  the  book.  And  that  meaning,  in  the  case  of 
the  Bible,  is  God's  meaning.  What  the  book,  in 
its  own  personality,  says,  He  says. 

We  shall  be  obliged  to  illustrate  this  proposition 
at  some  length. 

1.  The  first  and  simplest  case  is  that  where  it 
reports  GrooVs  own  words  spoken  directly  to  men, 
as  were  the  Ten  Commandments,  Ex.  20  : 1 ;  Deut. 
4:  33.     Of  course,  there  can  be  no  difficulty  here. 


104  our  father's  book. 

But  in  order  to  determine  what  is  the  divine 
message  to  us,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  words 
which  in  their  nature  and  circumstances  were 
addressed  to  a  single  people  only,  as  the  Jews  or 
some  ancient  nation,  and  what  were  designed  for 
mankind  at  large.  Thus  even  the  Decalogue  was 
spoken  to  the  Jews.  It  is  prefaced  by  the  decla- 
ration, "I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which  have 
brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  out  of  the 
house  of  bondage."  It  commands,  "Honor  thy 
father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  long 
in  the  land  (Palestine)  which  the  Lord  tlxy  God 
giveth  thee."  And  yet,  such  is  the  nature  of  these 
requirements  that  their  substantial  meaning  has 
ever  been  regarded  as  intended  for  all  men.  They 
were  the  Word  of  God  directly  to  the  Jews ;  they 
are  his  Word  indirectly  to  us. 

2.  The  same  remarks  apply  to  the  words  of  Christ 
in  the  New  Testament.  He  is  himself  the  Divine 
Logos,  or  Word,  and  his  teachings  are  the  very 
highest  form  of  divine  instruction  to  men.  We 
are  to  distinguish  here,  as  before,  between  what  he 
intended  specially  for  the  Jews  and  what  he 
designed  for  the  world.  .  His  command  to  Peter  to 
go  and  catch  a  fish  and  pay  the  temple  tax  with  it 
was  specific,  and  in  form  obligatory  on  Peter 
alone,  but  its  moral  import  that  the  payment  of 
lawful  taxes  is  a  duty  is  general,  and  as  such  is 
binding  on  all  men. 

3.  We  may  next  instance  the  teachings  of  the 


THE  DIVINE   MEANING  DISCERNED.  105 

apostles.  The  Book  represents  these  to  have  been 
specially  appointed  by  Christ  to  communicate  his 
will;  to  establish  institutions,  and  to  instruct  the 
churches  in  the  principles  and  duties  of  Christian- 
ity. They  were  furnished  with  credentials  to 
authenticate  their  instructions,  in  the  miraculous 
and  prophetic  powers  with  which  they  were 
endowed.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  claim  which  the 
Book  makes  for  them,  and  which  for  the  present 
we  take  for  granted.  What  they  say,  then,  offi- 
cially, in  the  discharge  of  this  duty,  is  clothed  with 
the  authority  of  their  appointment,  and  is  properly 
the  word  of  God.  "  He  that  receive th  you,"  said 
Christ,  "receiveth  me,  and  he  that  receiveth  me, 
receiveth  Him  that  sent  me."  The  same  distinc- 
tion, again,  is  to  be  made  here  as  before,  between 
what  was  local  and  personal  in  form,  and  what  is 
universal.  Paul's  direction  to  the  Corinthians  to 
take  a  collection  for  the  poor  disciples  in  Judsea  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  was  of  the  former  class ; 
but  the  duty  of  Christians  to  assist  their  poor 
brethren  generally  in  a  regular  and  systematic 
manner  is  of  the  latter.  His  declaration  that  he 
would  eat  no  meat  while  the  world  stands,  if  it 
should  be  the  occasion  of  a  brother's  fall,  expressed 
his  personal  duty  while  living  among  idolaters; 
but  the  spirit  of  it  expresses  our  duty  in  respect 
to  drinking  wine,  in  these  days  when  thousands 
around  us  are  ruined  by  habits  of  intoxication. 
The  same  word  which  said  to  him,  "  Eat  not,"  says 


106  our  father's  book. 

to  us,  "  Drink  not,"  and  it  is  the  same  Divine 
Word  in  both  cases. 

4.  There  is  still  one  more  example,  that  of  the 
prophets.  These  were  a  class  of  men  who  claim  to 
have  been  expressly  appointed  and  accredited  to 
speak  in  God's  name  under  the  former  dispensation, 
as  the  apostles  were  under  the  latter.  In  the 
earliest  times  they  were  chosen  by  a  direct  call 
from  God,  and  were  taken  from  various  ranks  and 
conditions  of  men  as  pleased  him.  In  later  times, 
under  the  ministry  of  Samuel  and  his  successors, 
a  class  of  young  men  were  specially  educated  with 
a  view  to  this  sacred  office.  They  were  the 
teachers  of  the  Hebrew  people,  sometimes  receiving 
new  and  original  communications  from  heaven, 
and  sometimes  only  expounding  and  applying 
those  already  given,  like  the  preachers  of  our  own 
day.  These  duly  authenticated  messages  of  the 
prophets,  therefore,  were  to  the  people  of  their 
time  the  word  of  God.  To  a  larger  extent  than 
those  of  the  apostles  they  were  local  and  specific, 
as  in  their  denunciations  of  idolatiy,  and  of 
violations  of  the  laws  of  their  land  and  their 
religion;  yet  under  all  these  there  was  ever  the 
assertion  of  great  moral  principles  and  truths 
which  are  immortal.  They  were  in  the  letter  the 
word  of  God  to  their  contemporaries  ;  they  are  in 
spirit  the  word  of  God  to  us  and  to  all  men. 

Thus  far  the  answer  to  our  inquiry  is  easy. 
Whenever  the  sacred  volume  brings  to  us  God's 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  107 

own  words,  or  the  words  of  Christ  who  came  to 
reveal  God  to  mankind,  or  the  writings  of  apostles 
and  prophets  who  spoke  and  wrote  in  his  name  by 
virtue  of  the  special  commission  they  had  received 
for  that  purpose,  there  we  have  the  divine  utter- 
ances. In  the  supposed  volume  or  library  pre- 
sented by  a  father  to  his  family,  whatever  portion 
was  written  by  himself  or  at  his  dictation  by 
persons  in  his  employment,  is  manifestly  his.  But 
suppose  a  portion  which  was  neither.  It  does  not 
bear  his  name,  it  was  not  of  his  composition,  its 
authorship  is  unknown.  And  yet  it  is  a  part  of 
the  collection.  It  was  chosen  and  placed  there  by 
him  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  his  design,  and 
equally  with  the  rest  bears  the  stamp  of  his 
authority.  How  can  the  family  discern  Mb 
thought  and  Jus  will  in  this? 

We  answer,  the  father  intended  ivhatever  this 
book  or  anonymous  portion  properly  means.  Let 
us  endeavor  to  explain  and  verify  this  assertion. 

We  take,  as  an  easy  illustration,  the  genealogy 
of  our  Lord  as  given  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Matthew.  It  is  true  that  the  Gospel  of  Matthew, 
as  written  by  an  apostle,  comes  under  the  first 
class  of  writings  mentioned.  But  as  probably 
this  genealogy  was  not  originally  composed  by 
Matthew,  but  was  copied  from  the  public  registry 
of  the  Jewish  families  kept  by  the  priests  in  the 
temple,  it  may  well  enough  serve  our  purpose  as  a 
specimen.    Who  composed  it  we  do  not  know,  but 


108  our  father's  book. 

it  was  placed  here  to  express  the  Divine  Word  to 
men.  And  we  say  that  Divine  Word  is  what  the 
record  means.  It  means  evidently  to  inform  us 
that  Jesus  was  in  family  descent  of  the  line  of 
David.  The  prophets  had  all  predicted  this  of  the 
coming  Messiah.  Matthew,  a  Jew,  writing  accord- 
ing to  tradition  for  Christians  of  Jewish  lineage 
and  training,  feels  it  necessary,  in  order  to  es- 
tablish the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  to  show  from  the 
public  authorities,  which  nobody  could  question, 
that  this  first  of  all  credentials  belonged  to  him. 
He  goes,  we  may  presume,  to  the  registry  office,  as 
a  man  would  now  go  to  the  land  registry  to  prove 
his  title  to  a  piece  of  land,  and  copies  it  off  for  the 
introduction  of  his  narrative.  And  this  record, 
so  adopted,  and  by  adoption  approved,  becomes 
of  the  same  authority  as  if  proceeding  from  his 
own  inspired  pen,  and  for  this  purpose  is  the 
Word  of  God.  It  is  as  if  the  Holy  Spirit  had 
dictated  explicitly,  "  Jesus  was  a  descendant  from 
David." 

And  this  holds  true,  notwithstanding  any  verbal 
errors  which  may  be  discovered  in  the  record 
itself.  For  instance,  Matthew  goes  on  immediately 
to  show  that  Jesus,  in  absolute  strictness,  was  not 
descended  from  David.  Perhaps  Mary  was,  and 
Jesus  through  her,  but  that  is  not  what  this  record 
says.  Taking  all  things  together,  then,  we  correct 
our  first  reading.  It  does  not  mean  that  Jesus 
was  a  descendant  of  David  by  natural  generation, 


THE  DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  109 

but  in  the  well-known  Jewish  legal  sense.  He 
was  legally  the  son  of  Joseph,  who  was  in  the  line 
of  legal  descent  from  David.  This  is  what  the 
record,  properly  understood,  means,  and  this,  then, 
is  what  the  Holy  Spirit  says. 

So  with  other  criticisms  that  may  be  made  of 
this  record.  Comparing  it  with  the  history  in  the 
Old  Testament,  we  discover  that  three  generations 
are  left  out  between  Joram  and  Ozias,  viz.,  Aha- 
ziah,  Joash,  and  Amaziah.  (2  Kings  8 :  25  ;  14 :  21 ; 
15 :  32.  Ozias  is  the  Hebrew  Uzziah  or  Azariah.) 
Why  this  omission  was  made,  either  on  the  record 
or  by  Matthew  in  the  copy,  we  do  not  know. 
So,  too,  probably,  the  name  Jehoiakim  has  been 
dropped  out  between  Josias  and  Jechonias  (1 
Chron.  3:  15,  16),  and  Pedaiah  between  Salathiel 
and  Zorobabel  (1  Chron.  3  :  19).  And  further, 
the  word  "  begat "  evidently  cannot  be  used  in  its 
natural  sense.  Jechoniah  (or  Coniah),  according 
to  Jer.  22 :  30,  had  no  children,  and  in  Luke  3 :  27, 
Salathiel  is  said  to  have  been  the  son  of  Neri. 
The  word,  then,  must  be  used  in  what  we  have 
called  the  legal  sense.  If  a  man  died  without 
children,  his  next  kinsman  became  his  heir  and 
was  legally  reckoned  his  son  (Numb.  27:  8,  11). 
In  the  public  documents  the  language  would  be 
made  to  conform  to  this  rule.  All  these  criticisms 
of  the  words,  however,  do  not  alter  the  meaning 
intended  to  be  conveyed  by  them.  That  meaning 
still  is,  Jesus,  according  to  the  law  and  the  pro- 


110  our  father's  book. 

phets,  was  a  descendant  of  David.  That,  there- 
fore, is  the  Word  of  God,  and  is  inspired. 

We  must  not,  however,  make  the  mistake  of 
inferring  that  the  words  themselves,  unless  in- 
volving errors  in  copying  and  transmission,  are 
not  also  inspired.  They  are  just  the  words  which 
the  Holy  Spirit  chose  when  he  sent  Matthew  to 
copy  them.  Standing  on  the  register  itself,  their 
value  as  an  authority  would  be  such  that  they  had 
better  be  copied  as  they  were  than  try  to  amend 
them,  which  might  expose  the  evangelist  among 
the  captious  Jews  to  the  charge  of  tampering  with 
the  records  for  a  purpose.  For  the  record  as  it 
stood  would  mislead  no  one.  It  teaches  just  as 
well  and  as  truly  the  fact  intended,  —  viz,  "  Jesus 
was  the  son  of  David,"  —  as  if  it  had  no  omissions, 
and  were  as  verbally  accurate  as  a  formula  in  al- 
gebra. If  the  purpose  had  been  to  show  the 
strictly  natural  lineage,  in  the  succession  of  actual 
parentage,  the  table,  we  have  reason  to  believe, 
would  have  been  differently  constructed. 

In  other  words,  —  and  we  deem  the  remark  so 
important  as  to  deserve  a  separate  paragraph,  — 
the  Holy  Spirit,  in  superintending  the  authorship 
of  the  sacred  volume,  was  as  free  in  the  use  of 
words,  and  in  the  form  and  structure  of  sentences 
and  narratives,  as  any  human  author  might  be. 
The  one  thing  to  be  done  was  to  see  that  what 
was  meant  by  his  utterances,  looking  behind  all 
verbal  peculiarities,  should  be  the  truth.     Indeed, 


THE  DIVINE   MEANING  DISCERNED.  Ill 

there  is  often  a  sublime  indifference  displayed  by 
this  Book  as  to  nicer  technicalities  of  language,  a 
freedom  that  is  almost  startling.  It  uses  popular 
speech,  of  the  sun  rising,  the  stars  falling,  the 
moon  being  turned  into  blood.  It  says  God  did 
tempt  Abraham,  and  that  he  tempts  no  man.  It 
gives  three  different  copies  of  the  tablet  put  up 
by  Pilate's  order  over  the  head  of  Jesus  on  the 
cross.  It  says  if  all  that  Jesus  said  and  did  should 
be  written,  the  world  could  not  contain  the  books. 
So  there  is  eveiywhere  a  noble  liberty  as  multi- 
form and  as  vast  as  the  operations  of  Nature,  yet 
never  misleading  to  him  who  seeks  to  know  the 
truth. 

We  next  take  an  example  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  Book  of  Ruth.  In  very  early  times  it 
appeared  as  an  appendage  to  Judges ;  but  there 
are  indications  in  its  language  that  its  composi- 
tion was  of  a  comparatively  late  date.  Who  its 
author  was  is  wholly  unknown.  It  is  a  story  of 
simple  domestic  life  wrought  with  no  small  liter- 
ary skill,  yet  apparently  not  one  which  would 
require  any  special  supernatural  aid  for  its  pro- 
duction. This  story  has  been  given  a  place  in 
the  sacred  volume,  and  as  such  claims  to  be  a  part 
of  the  Word  of  God.  How  do  we  discern  that 
word  in  it  ? 

We  apply  the  rule  already  announced.  God's 
word  in  this  book  is  that  which  the  book  teaches. 

First,  there  is  an  important  lesson  of  genealogy. 


112  our  father's  book. 

It  records  the  ancestry  of  David,  the  illustrious 
sovereign  and  psalmist  of  Israel,  and  through  him 
of  our  Lord  himself,  and  shows  how  the  latter 
came  to  be  a  citizen  of  Bethlehem,  thus  confirm- 
ing and  illustrating  the  narrative  of  his  birth  in 
the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke.  There  is 
also,  perhaps,  a  moral  design,  to  abate  the  pride 
and  bigotry  of  the  Jews  as  the  exclusive  people 
of  God  by  recording  the  fact  that  even  David 
was  descended  from  a  Moabite,  and  the  Messiah 
was  a  brother  to  Gentile  as  well  as  Hebrew. 
These  facts,  considering  the  sentiments  and  pre- 
judices of  that  people,  and  the  relations  which 
Christ  was  to  sustain  to  mankind,  were  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  be  embodied  in  a  brief  but 
distinct  narrative,  as  a  constituent  part  of  their 
sacred  oracles. 

Next,  there  are  moral  lessons  of  great  force  and 
beauty.  These  are  so  well  sketched  in  the  Pre- 
face of  the  book  in  the  Speaker's  Commentary, 
that  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  quote  them. 
"  The  book  gives  us  a  charming  view  of  the  do- 
mestic life  of  pious  Israelites  even  during  the  most 
troublous  times.  Had  we  only  drawn  our  impres- 
sions from  the  records  of  violence  and  crime  con- 
tained in  the  Book  of  Judges,  we  should  have 
been  ready  to  conclude  that  all  the  gentler  virtues 
had  fled  from  the  land,  while  the  children  of  Israel 
were  alternate^  struggling  for  their  lives  and 
liberties  with  the  tribes  of  Canaan,  or  yielding 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  113 

themselves  to  the  seductions  of  Canaanite  idol- 
atry. But  the  Book  of  Ruth,  lifting  up  the  cur- 
tain which  veiled  the  privacy  of  domestic  life, 
discloses  to  us  most  beautiful  views  of  piety, 
integrity,  self-sacrificing  affection,  chastity,  gen- 
tleness, and  charity,  growing  up  amidst  the  rude 
scenes  of  war,  discord,  and  strife.  In  Boaz  we 
have  a  model,  not  of  the  prowess  of  a  warrior  or 
the  abilities  of  a  statesman,  but  of  the  character 
of  a  rich  man  in  private  life.  We  see  one  whose 
deep  faith  in  God  breaks  out  in  every  word  of  his 
lips  and  every  action  of  his  life ;  one  attentive  to 
his  own  business  and  diligent  in  the  care  of  his 
own  property;  kind  and  friendly  to  his  depen- 
dents, and  beloved  by  them ;  liberal,  generous, 
and  courteous  to  the  poor  and  friendless  stranger, 
observing  and  appreciating  virtue  in  others,  and 
practicing  it  himself  under  trying  circumstances ; 
respecting  the  rights  of  others,  even  when  they 
interfered  with  his  own  wishes ;  observant  of  the 
laws  of  his  country,  though  living  in  lawless 
times ;  mindful  of  his  obligations  to  the  living 
and  the  dead,  alive  to  the  ties  of  kindred,  of  coun- 
try, and  of  religion,  and  uniformly  humble,  quiet, 
and  prudent  in  his  conduct.  In  Ruth  we  have  a 
touching  example  of  devoted  affection  to  her  hus- 
band's memory,  of  love  and  duty  to  an  adopted 
parent,  and  of  industry,  modesty,  and  patience, 
grafted  on  to  a  resolute  choice  of  the  true  God 
and  his  blessed  service  in  one  who  was  by  birth  a 


114  our  father's  book. 

heathen ;  while  in  Naomi  we  have  a  more  com- 
monplace specimen  of  a  good  woman  whose  reli- 
gion shows  itself  in  fidelity  to  her  earthly  duties, 
which  she  fulfills  with  quiet  pertinacity,  and  female 
tact  and  contrivance,  but  not  without  constant 
dependence  upon  God  both  in  prosperity  and  ad- 
versity. 

"  The  moral  of  the  history  is  also  very  encourag- 
ing to  unselfish  virtue.  For  while  Orpah,  whose 
love  was  satisfied  with  tears  and  kisses  to  her  hus- 
band's mother,  forfeited  the  place  she  had  half 
gained  in  Israel,  and  returned  unto  her  people  and 
unto  her  gods ;  and  while  the  kinsman,  who  in  his 
selfish  care  of  his  own  interests,  withheld  what 
was  due  to  the  living  and  the  dead,  has  had  his 
name  blotted  out  from  the  record  of  God's  worth- 
ies, Ruth,  on  the  contrary,  who  sacrificed  every- 
thing that  could  fascinate  a  young  woman  to  the 
claims  of  affection  and  duty,  and  Boaz,  who  un- 
hesitatingly did  the  kinsman's  part,  have  their 
names  crowned  with  blessings,  and  handed  down 
to  the  church  wherever  God's  Word  is  known,  as 
worthy  of  all  praise,  and  as  the  progenitors  of  that 
illustrious  line  which  gave  kings  to  Israel  through 
near  five  hundred  years,  and  from  which  was  born 
at  last,  in  the  city  of  David,  the  Saviour,  which  is 
Christ  the  Lord." 

These,  then,  are  the  things  which  this  anony- 
mous book  teaches,  and  these,  therefore,  are  the 
Word  of  God.     They  are  surely  worthy  of  that 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  115 

designation,  and  of  a  place  in  the  Book  which  is 
to  instruct  men  in  all  ages.  The  Holy  Spirit  has 
taken  this  delightful  human  story,  and  through  it 
has  told  us  most  divine  things.  Who  is  there  of 
the  commonest  sensibility  of  feeling  and  percep- 
tion that  cannot  discern  what  they  are  ? 

We  proceed  now  to  illustrate  this  principle  gen- 
erally in  reference  to  the  remaining  anonymous 
books. 

THE  HISTORICAL. 

The  larger  portion  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
history,  from  Genesis  to  Esther  inclusive.  The 
writers  of  it  in  no  instance  affixed  their  names 
to  their  productions,  and  the  real  authors  are  as- 
signed only  by  tradition,  which,  in  most  cases,  is 
also  conjectural. 

The  instruction  conveyed  by  history  is  com- 
paratively obvious.  It  is,  first,  the  knowledge  of 
the  events  related ;  and,  secondly,  the  lessons  de- 
rived from  them  on  the  great  subjects  of  truth  and 
duty.  Of  the  Old  Testament  history,  the  first  ten 
chapters  are  designed  to  teach  us  the  origin  of  the 
world,  of  the  human  family,  of  its  subdivision  into 
nations,  and  the  primary  organization  of  society. 
Leaving,  then,  these  general  topics,  the  narrative 
takes  up  a  single  family  and  follows  down  its  his- 
tory from  its  cradle  in  Mesopotamia  through  its 
migration,  and  its  patriarchal  and  servile  states, 
until  it  emerges  from  Egypt  and  becomes  in  Pales- 


116  our  father's  book. 

tine  a  populous  nation,  which,  receiving  from  God 
a  peculiar  and  distinctive  system  of  institutions, 
and  coming  under  a  special  providential  training, 
is  made  the  medium  through  which,  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  a  Saviour  and  a  universal  religion 
are  given  to  the  world.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  a  knowledge  of  this  history  is  necessary  to  a 
knowledge  of  Christianity,  which  is  its  ultimate 
outgrowth.  The  later  system  has  all  its  roots  in 
the  earlier,  —  nay,  is  itself  but  the  consummate 
flower  of  that  which  had  been  growing  and  matur- 
ing within  it  during  a  period  of  not  less  than  two 
thousand  years.  The  instruction  thus  imparted  is 
God's  word  to  men. 

Besides  this  specific  knowledge,  the  narrative 
imparts  those  practical  lessons  of  wisdom  and  duty 
which  are  incidental  to  all  history,  and  as  much 
more  in  this  as  God's  design  with  the  Hebrew 
people  was  loftier  and  wider  than  with  other  na- 
tions. The  laws  of  the  Mosaic  code  have  been 
the  fountain  and  model  of  legislation  for  the 
greatest  nations  of  the  world.  Its  spirit  has  been 
operative  to  soften  barbarism,  to  diffuse  the  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  and  personal  rights,  to  elevate  the 
condition  of  women,  to  teach  equity  and  virtue, 
and  the  refining  and  uplifting  influence  of  a  civ- 
ilization based  upon  a  pure  monotheistic  religion. 
So,  from  the  lives  of  patriarchs  and  sages,  the 
heroic  achievements  of  warriors,  the  counsels  of 
statesmen,   the   conquests,  the  alliances,  and  the 


THE   DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  117 

public  works  of  kings,  and  the  innumerable  exam- 
ples of  wisdom  and  goodness  and  piety  in  private 
life,  have  emanated  through  all  the  centuries  those 
lessons,  —  the  most  effective  of  all  because  embod- 
ied in  actual  life,  —  which  have  tended  to  make 
the  world  better  and  happier.  In  them  mankind 
have  heard  the  voice  of  God  speaking  to  the  con- 
science and  heart. 

Between  the  historical  and  prophetical  portions 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  placed  a  series  of  books 
having  special  characteristics,  —  Job,  the  Psalms, 
the  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  and  the  Song  of  Solo- 
mon. Some  of  these,  especially  the  Psalms,  are 
esteemed  by  all  Christians  as  among  the  most 
precious  portions  of  the  sacred  volume  ;  but  if  we 
attempt  formally  to  establish  their  inspiration, 
and  clearly  to  distinguish  what  in  them  is  divine 
from  what  is  confessedly  human,  we  shall  find  the 
task  by  no  means  easy.     We  begin  with 

THE  BOOK  OF  JOB. 

Who  wrote  this  book,  and  when,  is  unknown. 
The  Jewish  tradition  which  attributed  it  to  Moses 
is  not  accepted  by  modern  scholars.  Its  subject 
very  much  resembles  that  of  some  of  the  Psalms, 
viz.,  a  discussion  of  the  question  why,  under  the 
government  of  a  wise  and  beneficent  God,  good 
men  suffer  affliction,  and  bad  men  are  often  pros- 
perous. Job  and  his  three  friends,  with  Elihu  as 
a  self-appointed  umpire,  deliver  alternate  speeches 


118  our  father's  book. 

on  the  question,  all  of  them  saying  true  and  ex- 
cellent things,  jet  all  in  some  respects  wrong.  At 
length  God  himself  interposes  with  a  sublime  re- 
joinder to  the  whole,  reproving  their  presumption 
and  self-confidence  in  attempting  to  settle  by 
reason  the  profound  mysteries  of  Providence, 
and  teaching,  as  the  true  wisdom,  humility  and  a 
trustful  submission  to  Him  who  is  wonderful  in 
working,  and  his  ways  past  rinding  out.  Of 
course,  the  bare  statement  shows  that  none  of 
these  contestants  were  inspired  men,  nor  their 
utterances  to  be  taken  as  infallible  truth.  And 
yet  the  discussion  is  in  the  highest  degree  in- 
structive. It  voices  the  anxious  inquiries  of  good 
men  in  all  ages  respecting  this  grand  problem  of 
human  experience,  and,  followed  as  it  is  by  the 
reproving  words  of  God  himself,  is  well  adapted 
to  teach  the  lessons  of  patience,  confidence  in  the 
divine  wisdom,  and  a  reverent  and  humble  spirit 
in  all  the  discipline  of  life.  Those  lessons  consti- 
tute the  divine  element  of  the  book,  and  make  it 
worthy  of  a  place  in  the  sacred  oracles. 

THE   PSALMS. 

Scholars  reckon  up  five  collections  of  these  sa- 
cred lyrics,  of  many  different  authors  and  of  dif- 
ferent dates,  from  David,  or  possibly  Moses,  if  he 
was  the  author  of  the  90th,  to  a  period  subsequent 
to  the  return  from  Babylon.  These  collections 
end  respectively  with  the  41st,  72d,  89th,  106th, 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  119 

and  150th.  They  are  as  varied  in  their  contents 
as  in  their  authorship  and  dates.  Dr.  Robinson 
suggests  the  following  classes :  1.  Hymns  in 
praise  of  Jehovah ;  teliillim  in  the  proper  sense. 
2.  Temple  hymns  sung  at  the  consecration  of 
the  temple,  in  the  public  temple  worship,  and 
the  hymns  of  the  "  going  up "  or  "  Degrees," 
sung  by  the  travelers  on  their  way  to  Jerusa- 
lem at  the  times  of  the  feasts.  3.  Religious  and 
moral  songs  of  a  general  character.  4.  Elegiac 
hymns,  of  lamentation,  grief,  penitence,  etc.  5. 
Messianic  songs.  6.  Historical  hymns.  They  are, 
as  a  whole,  the  utterances  of  devout  men  in  the 
ancient  church  on  a  great  variety  of  occasions, 
and  expressive  of  a  wide  range  of  sentiment  and 
feeling.  There  is  adoration,  thanksgiving,  prayer 
for  pardon  and  comfort  and  spiritual  strength,  for 
the  welfare  of  Zion,  for  the  overthrow  of  oppres- 
sors, for  all  things  which  could  enter  into  the  de- 
sires and  aspirations  of  pious  men  in  the  ages 
when  they  lived.  Yet  these  were  all  imperfect 
men,  and  their  best  devotions  were  often  mingled 
with  imperfections.  We  cannot  say  that  their 
precise  words  were  always  the  product  of  divine 
suggestion,  or  accorded  with  the  divine  will,  any 
more  than  the  similar  productions  of  the  best 
hymn- writers  of  to-day.  But  as  the  church  of 
God  itself,  though  full  of  imperfection,  is  divinely 
called  and  organized,  and  set  before  the  world  to 
be  representatives  and  servants  of  the  divine  will, 


120  our  father's  book. 

so  these  utterances  of  his  people,  springing  from 
hearts  renewed  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  gathered 
and  set  forth  in  this  sacred  collection  to  be  ve- 
hicles of  the  devotions  of  others,  and  inspirers  of 
like  faith  and  penitence  and  holy  desire  in  all 
time  to  come. 

And  thus  we  undertake  to  answer  the  question, 
which  is  often  proposed  as  a  test  of  inspiration, 
"How  is  Psalm  137  the  word  of  God?"  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  written  by  one  among  the 
exiles  in  Babylon,  and  describes  the  pangs  in- 
flicted on  their  hearts  at  being  subjected  to  the 
taunts  of  their  heathen  masters,  the  depth  and 
constancy  of  their  attachment  to  their  native 
Zion,  and  the  expression  of  a  fervent  desire,  very 
vindictive,  yet  very  human,  that  some  heartless 
conqueror  might  retaliate  upon  their  oppressors 
in  kind  :  "  Happy  shall  he  be  that  rewardeth  thee 
as  thou  hast  served  us.  Happy  shall  he  be  that 
taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the 
stones  !  "  Of  course,  neither  these  words,  nor  the 
feeling  they  express,  though  altogether  accordant 
with  the  low  plane  of  sentiment  and  even  piety 
in  that  barbarous  age,  could  have  sprung  from  the 
divine  suggestion.  And  yet  the  Spirit  of  inspira- 
tion, in  making  up  a  book  for  the  instruction  of 
the  church,  saw  fit  to  place  that  song  in  it  for  the 
lessons  it  does  teach,  —  of  constancy  in  faith  and 
attachment  to  one's  native  land  and  religion,  and 
even  as  preparing  the  way  to  show  by  contrast 


THE   DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  121 

the  infinitely  purer  and  grander  spirit  of  the  com- 
ing dispensation  of  the  gospel,  which  bids  men  to 
love  their  enemies. 

THE  PROVERBS. 

These,  too,  are  collections  of  the  wise  sayings 
of  wise  men,  —  Solomon  and  others,  —  mostly 
about  secular  affairs  or  ordinary  morality.  The 
principles  we  have  stated  and  illustrated  apply 
to  these.  It  is  not  needful  to  ask  whether  every 
saying  here  recorded  was  directly  communicated 
to  the  writer  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  No  one  will 
dispute  that  they  are  very  instructive  utterances. 
They  have  been  incentives  to  virtue,  prudence, 
good  morals,  and  wise  living  for  hundreds  of  years, 
and  to  some  extent  all  the  more  effective  because 
they  are  so  manifestly  the  suggestions  of  human 
experience.  For  this  reason,  and  it  was  a  suffi- 
cient one,  it  was  deemed  suitable  by  the  Divine 
Spirit  to  give  them  a  place  in  this  book,  and  being 
so  adopted,  all  its  valuable  lessons  became  the 
teachings  of  that  Spirit  himself. 

ECCLESIASTES. 

Yet  further  removed  from  our  preformed  ideal 
of  a  divine  work  is  this  book ;  one  of  the  very 
latest,  probably,  in  composition,  yet  put  forth  by 
its  unknown  author,  after  a  permitted  custom  of 
its  age,  in  the  name  of  Solomon.  Few  scholars  of 
the  present  day  view  it  as  having  been  written  by 


122  our  father's  book. 

that  monarch.  Taken  as  a  whole,  it  may  be  re- 
garded somewhat  as  the  confessions  of  a  converted 
unbeliever  and  sensualist,  who,  having  run  the 
round  of  worldly  pleasure,  records  the  result  of 
his  experience,  and  his  conviction  that  such  a  life 
is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit ;  that  to  fear  God 
and  keep  his  commandments  is  alike  the  whole 
duty  and  the  highest  wisdom  of  man.  In  this 
view,  its  ethical  teachings  are  of  great  value,  just 
as  the  recollections  of  Mr.  Gough  and  others  re- 
claimed from  an  evil  life  are  powerful  incentives 
to  temperance  and  virtue.  No  wise  parent  would 
hesitate  to  place  a  volume  of  such  confessions  in 
the  library  of  his  family  for  the  lessons  that  would 
be  conveyed  to  them  by  it ;  and  by  the  same  rea- 
son we  may  assume  that  the  Spirit  of  God,  who 
directed  the  prophets  in  the  preparation  of  the 
sacred  volume  for  the  instruction  of  mankind, 
caused  them  to  give  Ecclesiastes  a  place  therein, 
and  thereby  made  it,  with  the  rest,  the  Word  of 
God. 

And  now,  last  of  all,  what  shall  we  say  of 

THE   SONG   OF   SOLOMON? 

From  very  early  times  this  "  Song  "  has  gener- 
erally  been  regarded  as  an  allegory,  designed  to 
express  the  reciprocal  affection  existing  between 
God  and  his  people.  The  Jewish  Rabbis,  who 
were  specially  fond  of  this  method  of  interpreta- 
tion, held  that  it  was  Jehovah  and  the  Jews.    The 


THE  DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  123 

early  Christian  Fathers,  especially  Origen,  modi- 
fied the  idea,  and  made  it  represent  Christ  and 
the  church.  There  have  always  been  the  great- 
est difficulties,  however,  in  developing  the  plan  on 
either  assumption.  Nothing  of  the  sort  is  appa- 
rent on  its  face,  and  only  the  greatest  ingenuity 
and  the  most  far-fetched  and  violent  assumptions 
were  sufficient  to  carry  it  out.  Even  so,  almost 
no  two  commentators  have  agreed  in  the  details ; 
and  thus  it  has  turned  out  that  of  all  ordinary 
readers  of  the  Bible  in  our  day,  not  one  in  a  hun- 
dred, we  suspect,  pretends  to  have  any  idea  what 
the  real  meaning  and  intent  of  the  book,  as  a  part 
of  Holy  Scripture,  is. 

The  tendency  of  modern  scholarship,  as  already 
intimated,  is  in  a  quite  different  direction.  There 
is  an  inclination  to  adopt  simpler  and  more  nat- 
ural modes  of  interpretation  for  all  parts  of  the 
Bible.  The  question  is  even  entertained,  Why 
may  not  a  composition  whose  theme  really  is,  as 
this  seems  to  be,  the  human  passion  of  love,  be 
made  the  vehicle  of  important  instruction  for 
men  ?  No  other  passion,  certainly,  has  more  to 
do  with  human  happiness  and  character  than  this. 
Why  may  not  He  who  instituted  marriage  as  the 
first  and  most  sacred  of  all  earthly  relations,  who 
enacted  for  its  protection  the  most  stringent  laws, 
who  made  it  the  theme  of  repeated  and  explicit 
directions,  both  from  Christ  himself  and  his  apos- 
tles, and  who  finally  appointed  it  as  the  symbol 


124  our  father's  book. 

of  the  ineffable  union  subsisting  between  the  Re- 
deemer and  the  saints  in  heaven,  place  in  the 
volume  that  declares  his  will  one  short  poem  of 
love,  in  form  and  language  and  style  corresponding 
to  its  theme,  which  shall  teach  to  him  who  reads 
it  aright  His  own  divine  thoughts  and  will  ? 

Whichever  view  is  taken  of  its  design,  the  first 
thing  requisite  to  an  understanding  of  it  is  to  dis- 
cover its  plan.  Even  if  it  be  an  allegory,  it  must 
have  some  outline  narrative  as  its  basis.  The 
parables  of  the  New  Testament  and  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  have  each  a  stoiy,  involving  personages 
and  actions,  which  serves  as  a  thread  on  which  the 
moral  lesson  is  hung.  It  is  confessedly  very 
difficult  to  discern  such  a  thread  running  through 
the  Canticles.  There  is  no  formal  narrative,  ex- 
plaining place,  time,  or  circumstances.  The  poem 
is  made  up  of  speeches  or  soliloquies,  but  the 
speakers  are  not  named,  and  where  each  begins 
and  ends  is  not  always  easy  to  discover.  And 
yet  clews  are  not  wholly  wanting,  especially  in 
the  original,  from  a  careful  study  of  which,  with 
the  aid  of  some  historical  facts  recorded  elsewhere, 
scholars  have  developed  the  following  plan.  We 
quote  from  Professor  Ginsberg,  in  Kitto's  Cyclo- 
paedia :  — 

"  A  village  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  widowed  mother  of  Shu- 
lam,  is  betrothed  to  a  young  shepherd  whom  she  met  whilst 
tending  the  flock.  Fearing  lest  the  frequent  meetings  of  these 
lovers  should  be  the  occasion  of  scandal,  the  brothers  of  the 
Shulamite  employ  her  in  the  vineyard  on  their  farm.     Whilst 


THE  DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  125 

on  the  way  to  this  vineyard  she  one  day  falls  in  with  the  cor- 
tege of  king  Solomon,  who  is  on  a  spring  visit  to  the  country. 
Struck  with  her  great  beauty,  the  king  captures  her,  conveys 
her  to  his  royal  pavilion,  then  conducts  her  to  Jerusalem  in 
great  pomp,  in  the  hope  of  dazzling  and  overcoming  her  with 
his  splendor,  and  eventually  lodges  her  in  his  harem.  But  all  is 
in  vain.  True  to  her  virtuous  love,  she  resists  all  the  allure- 
ments of  the  exalted  sovereign,  spurns  all  his  promises  to 
elevate  her  to  the  highest  rank,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  gay 
scenes  assures  her  humble  shepherd,  who  followed  her  to  the 
capital,  that  her  affections  are  sacredly  and  inviolably  pledged 
to  him.  Solomon,  convinced  at  last  that  all  his  addresses  are 
in  vain,  allows  her  to  quit  the  royal  residence.  Hand  in  hand 
the  two  faithful  lovers  return  to  her  native  place,  and  on  their 
way  home  visit  the  tree  under  which  their  love-spark  was  first 
kindled,  and  there  renew  their  vows  of  constancy  and  fidelity. 
On  their  arrival,  they  are  welcomed  by  their  companion  shep- 
herds, and  she  is  rewarded  by  her  brothers  for  her  exemplary 
virtue." 

Inasmuch  as  this  view  of  the  poem  will  be  un- 
familiar to  many  of  our  readers,  and  in  order  also 
to  further  illustrate  the  important  method  we 
desire  to  exhibit  of  seeing  the  divine  in  the  hu- 
man, we  will  venture  to  give  the  following  transla- 
tion, with  a  few  explanatory  notes :  — 

TITLE. 

The  Song  of  Songs,  which  is  to  Solomon.1 

[The  opening  scene  is  laid  in  the  country,  as  is  apparent  from 
the  fact  that  in  Chap.  3 :  6,  Solomon  and  his  attendants  appear 

1  The  phrase  undoubtedly  attributes  the  authorship  to  Solomon  him- 
self, but  it  is  generally  conceded  that  the  titles  to  the  ancient  Hebrew 
poems  are  without  authority.  The  author  of  Ecclesiastes  represents 
his  work  as  having  been  written  by  the  same  monarch ;  but  the  claim  is 
now  almost  universally  rejected.  For  the  evidence  against  the  Solomonic 
authorship  of  this  song,  see  the  article  in  Kitto's  Cyclopaedia. 


126  our  father's  book. 

coming  from  the  country  to  Jerusalem.  Shulam  or  Shunem  is 
a  village  on  the  southwest  flank  of  Little  Hermon,  three  miles 
from  Jezreel,  and  about  sixty  north  from  Jerusalem.  Its 
present  name  is  Solam. 

We  first  see  the  Shulamite  in  the  women's  tent  of  the  king, 
with  the  other  ladies  of  the  harem,  by  whom  she  is  attended 
and  guarded.  She  sits  pensively  thinking  of  her  betrothed 
lover,  from  whom  she  has  been  separated.] 

Shulamith  (soliloquizing). 

Let  him  kiss  me  with  the  kisses  of  his  mouth, 
For  thy  caresses  are  sweeter  than  wine. 
Thy  perfumes  are  rich  in  fragrance ; 
Fragrance  poured  forth 1  is  thy  name ; 
Therefore  the  maidens  admire  thee. 
Take  me  away  — 

The  Ladies  (interrupting). 
We  will  run  after  thee.2 

Shulamith. 
The  king  hath  forced  me  into  the  harem. 

The  Ladies. 
We  will  rejoice  and  be  glad  in  thee. 
We  will  praise  thy  charms  above  wine ; 
Fittingly  do  they  love  thee. 

Shulamith. 
I  am  swarthy  — 

The  Ladies. 

and  lovely,  — 

Shulamith. 

O  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 
As  the  tents  3  of  Kedar  — 

1  Poured  forth;  therefore  pervading  the  air  and  more  apparent  than 
what  is  shut  within  its  vase. 

2  That  is,  to  prevent  her  escape.         3  Made  of  the  hair  of  black  goats. 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  127 

The  Ladies. 

as  the  lent-cloths  of  Solomon. 

Shulamith. 
Do  not  disdain  me  that  I  am  dark. 
Because  the  sun  hath  browned  me. 
The  sons  of  my  mother  were  angry  with  me, 
They  set  me  as  a  watcher  of  the  vineyards  — 
My  own  vineyard  I  did  not  watch.1 
Tell  me,  thou  whom  my  soul  loveth, 
Where  thou  pasturest  thy  flocks,2 
Where  thou  rcposest  at  noon-day ; 
For  why  shall  I  seem  like  one  straying 
Unto  the  flocks  of  thy  companions  ? 3 

The  Ladies. 
If  thou  knowest  not,  fairest  among  women, 
Go  forth  in  the  tracks  of  the  flocks, 
And  tend  thy  kids 
By  the  tents  of  the  shepherds.4 

SCENE  II. 
[The  king  enters,  and,  seeing  the  young  stranger,  throws  her 
a  compliment.] 
To  my  mare  5  in  the  chariots  of  Pharaoh 
I  liken  thee,  my  dear; 
Lovely  are  thy  cheeks  with  beads, 

i  That  is,  herself.  She  was  so  intent  in  guarding  the  fruit  of  the 
vineyards  that  she  did  not  perceive  the  approach  of  the  king's  cavalcade 
by  which  she  was  captured. 

2  This  is  the  description  of  a  shepherd  lover,  and  cannot  possibly,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  have  been  addressed  to  the  king. 

3  Her  lover,  not  knowing  what  had  befallen  her,  might  fancy  from  her 
absence  that  she  had  been  untrue  to  him,  and  had  gone  away  with  some 
rival  among  the  shepherds. 

4  Spoken  ironically,  as  if  to  say  that  if  she  was  so  insensible  to  the 
advantages  now  offered  her  of  being  a  favorite  in  the  harem,  she  had 
better  go  back  and  be  a  rustic. 

s  See  1  Kings  10: 26.  The  Septuagint  says  Solomon  had  forty  thousand 
mares  for  his  chariots.  The  comparison  would  not  seem  so  strange  to 
orientals,  who  have  such  a  passion  for  beautiful  horses. 


128  our  father's  book. 

Thy  neck  with  necklaces ; 1 

Chains  of  gold  we  will  make  for  thee, 

With  studs  of  silver. 

Shulamith  (aside). 
While  the  king  was  with  his  courtiers, 
My  frankincense  gave  forth  its  fragrance. 
A  packet  of  myrrh  is  my  beloved  to  me; 
It  shall  repose  all  night  in  my  bosom. 
A  bunch  of  cypress-blossoms  is  my  beloved  to  me 
In  the  gardens  of  En-gedi.2 

Solomon  (repeating  his  compliments). 
Ah!  thou  art  lovely,  my  dear,8 
Ah !  thou  art  lovely ; 
Thine  eyes  are  doves. 

Shulamith  (apostrophizing  her  lover). 
Ah!  thou  art  lovely,  my  beloved, 
Yea,  charming;  our  couch  is  the  green  (grass); 
The  beams  of  our  house  are  the  cedars, 
The  ceilings  are  the  cypresses ; 4 
I  am  a  wild  rose  5  of  Sharon, 
A  lily  of  the  valleys. 

1  Resembling  the  highly  ornamented  bridle  and  head-gear  of  his  steed. 

2  This,  soliloquy  is  to  be  understood  — "As  long  as  the  king  was  en- 
gaged in  his  business  and  did  not  toouble  me  with  his  addresses,  I  was 
happy  in  the  thoughts  of  my  betrothed."  The  figures  she  uses  are  but 
the  carrying  out  of  the  conception  with  which  she  began,  that  he  and 
his  name  were  sweet  perfumes  to  her.  Such  perfumes,  of  which  so  fre- 
quent mention  is  made  in  the  poem,  were  profusely  used  by  oriental 
ladies. 

3  There  is  much  significance  in  the  various  terms  of  endearment  used 
by  the  different  persons.  The  one  employed  here  is  rather  one  of  com- 
pliment than  of  affection.  Very  different  are  those  used  by  the  shepherd 
lover,  and  even  by  the  king  himself  in  the  scene  where  he  so  ardently 
urges  his  passion.    Chap.  7:6,  9. 

4  All  this  in  contrast  with  the  splendors  about  her.  How  is  it  pos- 
sible to  make  this  an  address  to  Solomon  himself? 

6  That  is,  a  simple  uncultivated  flower  of  the  plain,  suitable  for  her 
shepherd  lover,  but  not  fit  for  a  palace. 


THE   DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  129 

Solomon. 
As  a  lily  among  the  brambles, 
So  is  my  friend  among  the  daughters. 

Shulamith. 
As  the  apple  among  the  trees  of  the  forest, 
So  is  my  beloved *  among  the  sons. 
In  his  shade  delighted  I  sit, 
And  his  fruit  is  sweet  to  my  taste. 
He  brings  me  into  the  house  of  wine, 
And  his  banner  over  me  is  love. 
Eefresh  me  with  pressed  grapes, 
Eestore  me  with  apples, 
For  I  am  overcome  with  love.2 
His  left  hand  is  under  my  head, 
And  his  right  hand  embraces  me. 
I  adjure  you,  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 
By  the  gazelles  and  the  hinds  of  the  field, 
That  ye  wake  not,  that  ye  incite  not  love, 
Until  it  wills.3 

SCENE  III. 

[Shulamith  and  the  Ladies.     She  recites  the  history  of  her 

love.  ] 4 
The  voice  of  my  beloved !    Lo,  he  cometh 
Bounding  over  the  mountains, 
Leaping  over  the  hills ! 
Like  a  gazelle  or  a  young  hart  is  my  beloved. 

1  Referring  to  her  betrothed.  It  is  the  term  constantly  used  by  her, 
and  would  be  appropriate  for  a  lady  only  as  referring  to  her  husband, 
actual  or  intended. 

2  All  figures  carrying  out  the  comparison  of  her  lover  to  the  apple- 
tree.  His  endearments  she  fancifully  calls  the  apples.  It  is  probable 
that  the  so-called  "  apple  "  in  this  book  is  really  the  citron,  a  species  of 
orange. 

3  That  is,  true  love  must  be  spontaneous ;  it  cannot  be  forced.  Let 
the  ladies  desist  from  the  attempt  to  enlist  her  affections  for  the  king  by 
constraint.  The  repetition  of  this  language  several  times  marks  it  as 
expressing  the  proper  theme  of  the  poem  in  which  all  the  other  parts 
center. 

4  For  the  purpose  of  showing  how  entirely  her  heart  belongs  to 
another,  and  cannot  be  the  king's. 


130  our  father's  book. 

Lo !  he  stood  behind  our  wall, 

Looking  through  the  windows, 

Glancing  through  the  lattices. 

My  beloved  answered  and  said  to  me, 

"  Rise,  my  dear  one,  my  beautiful,  and  come  forth. 

For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past, 

The  rain  is  over  and  gone ; 

The  flowers  appear  on  the  earth, 

The  time  of  the  bird-singing  has  come, 

And  the  note  of  the  turtle-dove 

Is  heard  in  our  land. 

The  fig-tree  spiceth  its  fruit, 

And  the  blossoming  vines  give  fragrance. 

Arise,  my  dear  one,  my  beautiful,  and  come  forth. 

O  my  dove,  in  the  clefts  of  the  rocks,1 

In  the  recesses  of  the  cliffs, 

Let  me  behold  thy  form, 

Let  me  hear  thy  voice, 

For  thy  voice  is  sweet, 

And  thy  form  is  lovely."  — 

Shulamith' s  Brothers  {interposing). 

"  Capture  the  foxes,  the  little  foxes, 
That  despoil  the  vineyards, 
Even  our  vineyards  in  blossom." 

Shulamith. 
My  beloved  is  mine  and  I  am  his, 
Who  feeds  among  the  lilies. 
Till  the  day  cools  and  the  shadows  fall, 
Turn  away,  my  beloved, 
And  be  like  a  gazelle  or  a  young  hart, 
On  the  mountains  of  Separation.2 

1  Supposed  to  allude  to  the  situation  of  Shulamith's  home  on  the 
rocky  mountain  side. 

2  The  brothers  of  Shulamith,  not  approving  of  the  shepherd's  suit,  in- 
dignantly interrupt  his  address,  and  roughly  bid  her,  instead  of  staying 
to  listen  to  compliments,  go  to  her  charge  in  the  fields  for  the  protection 
of  the  blossoming  vines  from  the  depredating  foxes  or  jackals.  Compelled 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DTSCEKNED.  131 

Shulamith  relates  her  Dream. 
Upon  my  bed  in  the  night  hours 
I  sought  him  whom  my  soul  loveth, 
I  sought  him,  but  found  him  not. 
"  I  will  rise  now,  and  go  about  the  city, 
In  the  market-places  and  the  streets ; 
I  will  seek  him  whom  my  soul  loveth." 
I  sought  him,  but  found  him  not. 
Found  me  the  watchmen, 
Who  go  about  in  the  city. 
"  Whom  my  soul  loveth  have  ye  seen  ?  " 
Scarcely  had  I  passed  by  them, 
When  whom  my  soul  loveth  I  found  ! 
I  clasped  him,  and  did  not  let  him  go, 
Till  I  brought  him  to  the  house  of  my  mother, 
And  into  the  room  of  her  that  bore  me. 
I  adjure  you,  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 
By  the  gazelles  and  the  hinds  of  the  field, 
That  ye  wake  not,  that  ye  incite  not  love, 
Until  it  wills. 

SCENE  IV. 

[The  road  to  Jerusalem.     The  king  returning  in  royal  proces- 
sion.] 

Ladies  of  Jerusalem. 
Who  is  this  coming  up  from  the  wilderness 
Amid  columns  of  smoke, 
Exhaling  myrrh  and  frankincense, 
With  every  perfume  of  the  merchant  ? 

Men  of  Jerusalem. 
Lo,  the  palanquin  of  Solomon  ! 
Sixty  heroes  around  it 

thus  to  leave,  she  reluctantly  dismisses  her  lover,  and  says  he  must  go 
and  wander  like  a  lonely  deer  over  the  wild  wastes  of  "  Separation."  It 
is  to  be  remembered  that  all  this  is  what  she  relates  to  the  ladies  of  the 
harem.  She  then  continues  with  a  tale  of  the  dream  she  had  the  follow- 
ing night,  concluding,  as  before,  with  an  appeal  to  them  not  to  try  to 
make  her  love  any  one  else. 


132  our  father's  book. 

Of  the  heroes  of  Israel, 

All  skilled  with  the  sword,  trained  to  war, 

Each  with  his  sword  by  his  side, 

Against  alarm  in  the  nights. 

A  palanquin  for  himself  King  Solomon  made 

Of  the  woods  of  Lebanon. 

Its  standards  he  made  of  silver, 

Its  canopy  of  gold,1  its  seat  of  purple, 

Its  linings  embroidered  by  love 

By  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem. 

Come  forth,  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 

And  gaze  upon  King  Solomon 

In  the  tiara  in  which  his  mother  crowned  him 

In  the  day  of  his  espousals,2 

And  in  the  day  of  the  gladness  of  his  heart. 

SCENE  V. 
[In  the  palace  in  Jerusalem.] 

Solomon. 
Ah !  thou  art  beautiful,  my  dear, 
Ah!  thou  art  beautiful; 
Thine  eyes,  under  thy  locks,  are  doves; 3 
Thy  tresses  are  like  a  flock  of  goats 
Reposing  upon  Mount  Gilead. 
Thy  teeth  like  a  flock  of  shorn  ones 
Coming  up  from  the  washing, 
All  of  them  twinning  themselves, 
And  none  without  her  mate.4 
Like  a  scarlet  thread  are  thy  lips, 
And  thy  speech  is  charming. 
Like  a  slice  of  a  pomegranate 

1  Perhaps  silken  tissues  of  golden  hue. 

2  Probably  at  bis  marriage  with  the  daugbter  of  Pharaoh  (1  Kings 
3:1.)  It  was  "  a  peculiar  marriage  custom,  according  to  which  the  mother, 
in  token  of  her  approval  of  tbe  alliance  contracted  by  her  son,  with  her 
own  hand  adorned  him  with  a  festive  crown."  —  Zockler. 

3  Peeping  forth  like  doves  from  their  windows. 

4  In  even  pairs,  upper  and  under. 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  133 

Thy  temples  under  thy  locks. 

Like  the  tower  of  David  thy  neck, 

Built  for  weapons  of  war; 

A  thousand  bucklers  are  hung  upon  it,1 

All  shields  of  the  mighty  ones. 

Thy  bosom  like  young  twin  fawns, 

Feeding  among  lilies. 

Shulamtth. 

Until  the  evening  breeze  blows, 
And  the  shadows  steal  on, 
I  will  retire  to  the  Mount  of  Myrrh,2 
And  to  the  Hill  of  Frankincense. 

SCENE  VI. 
[Shulamith  and  her  lover.     The  Palace  gardens  in  Jerusalem.] 

The  Shepherd. 

Ah!  thou  art  all  beautiful,  my  dear  one,3 

And  there  is  no  blemish  in  thee ! 

With  me  from  Lebanon,  my  betrothed, 

With  me  from  Lebanon  come ; 

Look  off  from  the  top  of  Amana, 

From  the  summit  of  Shenir  4  and  Hermon, 

From  the  dens  of  lions, 

From  the  mountains  of  leopards. 

1  The  pendents  hanging  from  her  ears  and  hair. 

2  Disliking  this  style  of  compliment,  she  signifies  her  wish  to  retire  for 
the  rest  of  the  day.  The  "mount"  and  "hill"  here  named  are  thought 
to  he  secluded  places  in  the  gardens  of  the  palace. 

3  Learning  of  her  capture,  her  lover,  with  a  company  of  friends,  has  fol- 
lowed her  to  the  city,  and  has  contrived  to  gain  an  interview  with  her, 
possibly  in  the  gardens.  He  is  first  delighted  at  her  new  beauty  in  the 
splendid  dress  and  ornaments  given  her  in  the  palace.  He  then  bids  her 
flee  with  him  to  the  remote  summits  of  Lebanon,  whence  they  can  look 
off  on  the  plains  of  Damascus.  The  sight  of  her  in  her  beauty,  he  says, 
has  strengthened  his  courage  to  do  and  dare  anything  to  rescue  her. 
How,  we  beg  to  ask,  is  all  this  conceivable  if  put  in  the  mouth  of  Solo- 
mon himself  ? 

*  The  native  name  of  Hermon.    See  Deut.  3:  9. 


134  our  father's  book. 

Thou  hast  made  my  heart  strong, 
My  sister,  my  plighted  one,  — 
Thou  hast  made  my  heart  strong, 
With  one  (glance)  of  thine  eyes, 
With  one  chain  of  thy  neck. 
How  lovely  art  thou,  my  love, 
My  sister,  my  plighted  one. 
How  much  sweeter  thy  love  than  wine, 
And  the  sweetness  of  thy  perfumes 
Than  all  fragrance ! 

Shulamith. 
Thy  lips  drop  honey,  my  espoused; 
Honey  and  milk  are  under  thy  tongue, 
And  the  smell  of  thy  garments 
Is  like  the  odor  of  Lebanon. 

The  Shephekd. 

A  garden  locked  is  my  sister-spouse, 

A  spring  inclosed,  a  fountain  sealed.1 

Thy  plants  are  a  paradise  of  pomegranates, 

With  fruits  of  excellence, 

Henna  and  spikenard, 

Nard  and  saffron, 

Sweet  calamus  and  cinnamon, 

With  all  shrubs  yielding  frankincense, 

Myrrh  and  aloes, 

And  all  chief  spices ; 

A  fountain  of  gardens, 

A  well  of  living  waters, 

And  streams  from  Lebanon. 

Shulamith. 
Wake,  thou  North  wind, 
And  come,  thou  South ; 

1  A  delicate  way  of  saying  she  is  still  pure  and  chaste,  true  to  him 
alone.  The  epithets  following  are  expressions  of  his  admiration,  in  keep- 
ing with  the  fancy  that  she  is  a  safely  inclosed  "garden."  It  is  a  garden 
which  yields  to  him  ahundant  sweets. 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  135 

Breathe  upon  my  garden, 

And  let  the  spices  exhale. 

Let  my  beloved  come  into  his  garden 

And  eat  his  fruits  of  excellence.1 

The  Shepherd. 
I  come  to  my  garden,  my  sister-spouse, 
I  breathe  my  myrrh  with  my  perfume, 
I  eat  my  honeycomb  with  my  honey, 
I  drink  my  wine  with  my  milk.2 

The  Shepherd's  Companions.3 
Eat  ye,  O  friends,  drink  and  be  satisfied, 

0  ye  loving  ones. 

SCENE   VII. 
[The  Harem.     Shulamith  and  the  Ladies.] 

Shueamith's  Dream.4 

1  slept,  but  my  heart  was  awake ; 
The  voice  of  my  beloved  knocked :  — 
"  Open  to  me,  my  sister,  my  dear, 
My  dove,  my  perfect  one, 

For  my  head  is  filled  with  dew, 

My  locks  with  the  drops  of  the  night." 

"  I  have  put  off  my  robe,"  I  said, 

"  How  can  I  dress  me  ?• 

I  have  washed  my  feet, 

How  can  I  soil  them  ?  " 

1  She  responds  in  the  same  strain,  and  gives  him  permission  to  enjoy 
them. 

2  He  accepts  her  gifts. 

3  These  are  supposed  to  have  accompanied  him  for  protection  and 
companionship  on  his  dangerous  errand,  and  to  have  remained  a  little  in 
the  background  while  he  advanced  to  find  Shulamith.  They  overhear  the 
tender  conversation  of  the  lovers,  and,  charmed  with  their  innocence  and 
beauty,  involuntarily  bid  tbem  Godspeed. 

4  The  scene  just  described  repeated  itself  in  her  dreams  the  following 
night,  which  she  here  relates  to  the  ladies,  except  that  the  details  of  it 
are  changed.  Her  lover,  she  thought,  came  to  her  in  the  night  to  per- 
suade her  to  flee  with  him,  etc. 


136  our  father's  book. 

My  beloved  put  his  hand  through  the  lattice, 

And  my  pity  was  moved  for  him. 

I  rose  to  open  to  my  beloved, 

And  my  hands  dropped  myrrh, 

And  my  fingers  flowing  myrrh  upon  the  handle.1 

I  opened  to  my  beloved, 

But  my  love  was  departed,  was  gone! 

My  soul  went  from  me  at  his  word ! 

I sought  him,  but  I  found  him  not; 

I  called  him,  but  he  answered  not. 

The  watchmen  who  go  about  the  city  found  me ; 

They  struck  me ;  they  wounded  me ; 

They  lifted  my  veil  off  me,  — 

The  watchmen  of  the  walls. 

I  adjure  you,  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 

If  ye  find  my  beloved,  tell  him 

That  I  am  languishing  with  love. 

The  Ladies. 

What  is  thy  beloved  (more)  than  another  beloved, 
Thou  fairest  among  women? 
What  is  thy  beloved  (more)  than  another  beloved, 
That  thou  dost  so  adjure  us  ? 

Shulamith. 
My  beloved  is  fair  and  ruddy, 
A  bannered  one  among  a  myriad. 
His  head  (crown)  is  of  virgin  gold,2 
His  locks  flowing  and  dark  as  a  raven. 
His  eyes  like  doves  by  the  brooks, 
Bathing  in  the  white  foam 
And  sitting  by  the  full  waters. 
His  cheeks  are  as  beds  of  sweet  flowers, 
Like  trellises  of  perfumes ; 
His  lips  are  lilies  dropping  liquid  sweets ; 
His  hands  circlets  of  gold, 

1  Her  lover  had  taken  hold  of  the  door  on  the  outside  with  profusely 
anointed  hands."  — Zoclier. 

2  A  brilliant  yellow  turban  or  cap. 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING    DISCERNED.  137 

Set  with  Tarshish  stones;1 

His  body  shining  ivory,2 

Overlaid  with  sapphires ; 

His  legs  are  columns  of  marble, 

Set  in  golden  sockets  (sandals) ; 

His  countenance  is  like  Lebanon. 

Majestic  as  the  cedars ; 

His  lips  are  the  sweetest, 

And  he  is  altogether  lovely. 

This  is  my  beloved  and  this  is  my  friend, 

0  daughters  of  Jerusalem. 

The  Ladies. 
Whither  has  thy  beloved  gone,3 
Thou  fairest  among  women ; 
Whither  has  thy  beloved  turned  aside, 
And  we  will  seek  him  with  thee  ? 

Shtjlamith. 
My  beloved  has  gone  down  to  his  garden,4 
To  the  beds  of  balm, 
To  feed  in  the  gardens, 
And  to  gather  lilies. 

1  am  my  beloved's  and  my  beloved  is  mine, 
Feeding  among  the  lilies. 

SCENE  VIII. 
[The  same  apartments.] 
Solomon. 
Thou  art  lovely,  my  dear,  as  Tirzah,5 
Beautiful  as  Jerusalem  — 

1  Topazes;  perhaps  referring  to  his  polislied  finger-nails. 

2  His  close-fitting  white  tunic  or  vest. 

3  Probably  spoken  ironically ;   taking  literally  what  she  had  said  of 
their  "  finding"  him. 

4  That  is,  repelling  their  irony,  he  simply  has  entered  her  heart;  he 
enjoys  her  affections. 

6  A  city  about  nine  miles  east  of  Samaria,  in  a  very  beautiful  position, 
the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Jeroboam  and  Israel  (1  Kings  16  : 8). 


138  our  father's  book. 

Formidable  as  bannered  hosts ! x 

Turn  away  thine  eyes  from  my  face, 

For  they  agitate  me. 

Thy  hair  is  like  a  flock  of  goats 

Reposing  upon  Gilead ; 

Thy  teeth  like  a  flock  of  shorn  ones 

Which  come  up  from  the  washing, 

All  of  them  twinning  themselves, 

And  none  without  her  mate. 

Like  a  slice  of  pomegranate  thy  cheek 

From  behind  thy  veil. 

There  are  sixty  queens, 

And  eighty  concubines, 

And  maidens  without  number. 

One  only  is  my  dove,  my  perfect  one, 

The  only  one  of  her  mother, 

The  choice  one  of  her  that  bore  her. 

Daughters  saw  her  and  congratulated  her, 

Queens  and  concubines,  and  they  praised  her. 

The  Ladies. 
Who  is  this  that  looks  forth  like  the  morning,2 
Fair  as  the  white  one  (the  moon), 
Bright  as  the  hot  one  (the  sun), 
And  formidable  as  bannered  hosts  ? 

Shulamith. 
I  was  walking  to  the  garden  of  nuts 
To  look  at  the  fruits  of  the  valley, 
To  see  the  blossoming  of  the  vines, 
The  budding  of  the  pomegranates ; 
Ere  I  knew  it  my  soul  had  put  me 
Among  the  chariots  of  nobles.3 

1  Referring  to  her  frowns  at  being  addressed  with  new  compliments  by 
the  king. 

2  Echoing  the  words  of  the  monarch,  as  if  with  astonishment  at  her 
presumption. 

3  She  had  been  so  engrossed  in  thought  that  she  did  not  perceive  the 
approach  of  the  royal  guards.  This  is  her  answer  to  the  accusation  of 
being  cold  and  frowning ;  she  is  a  captive.  Here  she  apparently  turns  to 
leave  the  room. 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  139 

The  Ladies. 
Come  back,  come  back,  O  Shulamith, 
Come  back,  come  back, 
That  we  may  see  thee. 

Shulamith. 
What  would  you  see  in  Shulamith  ? 

The  Ladies. 
One  of  the  dances  of  Mahanaim.1 

Solomon. 
How  beautiful  are  thy  sandaled  feet, 
Thou  princely  daughter ! 
The  girdles  of  thy  hips  are  like  necklaces, 
The  work  of  a  skilled  hand ; 
Thy  girdle  clasp  a  round  bowl  filled  with  wine; 2 
Thy  bodice  a  wheat-sheaf  bound  with  lilies ; 
Thy  bosom  like  young  twin  fawns ; 
Thy  neck  a  tower  of  ivory; 
Thine  eyes  pools  in  Heshbon,3 
By  the  gate  leading  to  Bath-rabbim; 
Thy  nose  like  the  tower  of  Lebanon 
Looking  towards  Damascus. 
Thy  head  upon  thee  is  like  Carmel ; 
The  locks  of  thy  head  like  royal  purple, 
The  king  is  held  captive  in  its  ringlets. 

1  An  evident  allusion  to  Gen.  32:2.  Mahanaim,  in  the  dual  number, 
signifies  the  two  hosts  or  camps  ;  hence,  the  rendering  given  by  our  Eng- 
lish version.  The  "  dance  of  Mahanaim  "  is  therefore  supposed  to  be  a 
dance  of  two  companies  of  ladies  responding  to  each  other  with  singing 
and  music,  like  that  of  Miriam  and  her  companions  at  the  Red  Sea  (Ex. 
15: 20).  As  Shulamith  claims  to  be  only  a  simple  country  maiden,  the 
court  ladies  bid  her  perform  a  dance  of  that  sort  for  the  amusement  of 
the  king.  She  is  obliged  to  obey,  and  while  so  employed  he  addresses  her 
the  voluptuous  song  that  follows. 

2  That  is,  a  round  brooch  or  clasp  consisting  of  a  ruby  set  in  a  golden 
circlet. 

3  Heshbon,  the  ancient  capital  of  Moab  (Deut.  2:  24).  A  pool  of  water 
mirroring  the  blue  sky  is  a  beautiful  simile  for  the  liquid  blue  eye  of  a 
lady.    Probably  reference  was  made  to  known  features  of  the  city. 


140  otjk  father's  book. 

How  fair  and  how  charming,  love, 

Art  thou  in  pleasures ! 

This  thy  stature  is  like  a  palm-tree, 

And  thy  hosom  like  its  clusters. 

I  said,  I  will  climb  the  palm-tree, 

I  will  grasp  its  branches, 

And  thy  bosom  shall  be  to  me 

As  clusters  of  the  vine, 

And  the  breath  of  thy  mouth  like  apples, 

And  thy  palate  like  good  wine 

Going  down  for  my  beloved  smoothly, 

Awaking  the  lips  of  the  sleeping.1 

Shulamith. 
I  am  my  beloved's,  and  his  desire  is  for  me. 
Come,  my  beloved,  let  us  go  into  the  country;2 
Let  us  lodge  ( on  the  way)  in  the  villages. 
Let  us  rise  early  to  reach  the  vineyards ; 
Let  us  see  whether  the  vine  nourishes, 
The  grape  blossoms  are  opening, 
The  pomegranates  are  budding. 
There  will  I  give  my  loves  to  thee. 
The  mandrakes  breathe  fragrance, 
And  at  our  gates,  all  precious  things, 
Both  new  and  old,  my  love, 
I  have  garnered  for  thee. 
Would  thou  wert  as  a  brother  to  me,3 
That  nursed  the  bosom  of  my  mother ; 

i  The  lascivious  meaning  of  this  address  is  unmistakable.  How  is  it 
possible  to  see  in  it  any  expression  of  the  love  of  Christ  for  his  church  ? 
The  very  suggestion  seems  to  us  shocking.  Viewed  as  an  address  of  a 
royal  voluptuary  to  a  new  recruit  for  his  harem,  it  is  entirely  in  keeping. 
Shulamith' s  only  reply  to  it,  worthy  of  her  insulted  dignity  and  purity,  is 
that  she  belongs  to  her  lover  only. 

2  An  apostrophe  to  her  lover,  urging  him  to  come  and  take  her  to  her 
home. 

3  Spoken  apparently  in  sudden  remembrance  of  the  harsh  treatment 
her  brothers  had  before  shown  to  her.  Would  that  her  lover  was  like  a 
brother  rather  than  a  lover,  for  then  she  might  receive  him  to  her  home 
without  being  repelled. 


THE  DIVINE   MEANING  DISCERNED.  141 

I  would  find  thee  in  the  street ; 

I  would  kiss  thee,  yet  they  would  not  despise  me. 

I  would  lead  thee,  I  would  bring  thee 

Into  the  house  of  my  mother. 

Thou  wouldst  instruct  me. 

I  would  give  thee  to  drink  spiced  wine 

Of  the  juice  of  my  pomegranate. 

Thy  left  hand  should  be  under  my  head, 

And  thy  right  hand  should  embrace  me. 

I  adjure  you,  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem, 

That  ye  wake  not,  and  that  ye  incite  not  love, 

Until  it  wills. 

SCENE  IX. 
[Ilome  again.]1 

Villagers  of  Shunem. 
Who  is  this  that  cometh  up  from  the  wilderness  2 
Leaning  upon  her  beloved  ? 

The  Shepherd  (arm  in  arm  with  Shulamith). 
Under  this  apple-tree  I  waked  thee  (to  love),3 
There  thy  mother  travailed  with  thee, 
There  travailed  she  that  bore  thee. 

Shulamith. 
Oh,  set  me  as  a  seal  upon  thy  heart,4 
As  a  signet  upon  thine  arm; 
For  strong  as  death  is  love, 
Unrelenting  as  Sheol  is  jealousy; 
Its  shafts  are  brands  of  fire, 
A  lightning  flash  from  Jehovah. 

1  Her  repulse  of  the  king  seems  to  have  convinced  him  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  his  suit ;  and  we  next  see  her  with  her  lover  on  the  way  to  her 
native  village.  The  inference  is  that  the  monarch  yielded  to  her  pas- 
sionate entreaties,  and  permitted  her  to  leave  the  harem. 

2  The  open  country  ;  leading  up  to  the  village  on  the  mountain  side. 

3  Some  spreading  tree  in  the  garden  or  field  where  the  lovers  first 
pledged  their  affections. 

4  A  passionate  appeal  from  Shulamith  that  he  will  be  true  to  her,  as 
she  has  been  to  him. 


142  our  father's  book. 

Many  waters  cannot  extinguish  love, 

Nor  rivers  overwhelm  it. 

If  one  give  all  the  wealth  of  his  house  for  love 

With  scorn  shall  he  be  scorned.1 

Shulamith' s  Brothers, 
We  had  a  sister,  a  little  one, 
And  she  was  yet  a  child,  — 
"  What  shall  we  do  for  our  sister, 
In  the  day  when  she  shall  be  spoken  for  ? 
If  she  shall  be  a  wall, 
We  will  build  upon  her  a  silver  tower; 
If  she  shall  be  a  door, 
We  will  close  her  with  a  plank  of  cedar."  2 

Shulamith. 
I  am  a  wall,  and  my  bosom  like  towers ; 
Then  was  I  in  his  eyes  3 
As  one  that  findeth  peace. 
Solomon  has  a  garden  in  Baal-Hamon; 
He  committed  the  garden  to  keepers, 
Each  brings,  according  to  his  fruit, 
A  thousand  (pieces)  of  silver. 
My  vineyard,  which  is  my  own,  is  before  me. 

i  Probably  an  allusion  to  the  attempt  whicb  Solomon  had  made  to 
win  her  by  his  riches  and  grandeur.  Herein  is  the  great  moral  lesson  of 
the  poem.  Love  must  be  spontaneous;  it  cannot  be  bought. 
Golden  words,  worthy  to  be  made  the  motto,  the  guiding  truth,  in  every 
home  of  the  world. 

2  This  seems  to  be  a  recital  by  the  brothers,  who,  after  the  death  of 
their  father,  had  had  the  guardianship  of  Shulamith,  of  what  their  plans 
had  been  for  her  when  she  was  young.  They  had  resolved  that  if  she 
grew  up  virtuous  and  firm  in  honor  like  a  wall,  they  would  make  her  rich, 
but  if  slie  debased  herself,  like  an  open  door  free  to  all  that  came,  they 
would  keep  her  in  ignoble  confinement,  like  a  door  stopped  up  by  a  rude 
plank.  The  thought  and  the  expression  are  highly  figurative,  after  the 
sometimes  grotesque  conceptions  of  oriental  fancy. 

3  That  is,  Solomon's.  Shulamith  declares  that  she  was  firm  under 
her  trial,  and  her  very  charms,  which  exposed  her  to  temptations,  she 
made  as  towers  of  strength  for  her  defense  ;  in  consequence  of  which  she 
won  the  favor  of  Solomon  himself. 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  143 

The  thousand  (pieces)  are  for  thee,  O  Solomon, 
And  two  hundred  for  them  that  keep  the  fruits.1 

The  Shepherd. 

O  thou  that  dwellest  in  the  gardens, 
Our  friends  are  listening  to  thy  voice. 
Let  me  hear  it. 

Shtjlamith. 

Haste  thee,  beloved ! 
And  be  like  a  gazelle  or  a  young  hart 
Upon  the  mountains  of  sweet  Spices ! 2 

Our  readers  will  compare  this  translation,  made 
in  accordance  with  the  plan  of  Professor  Ginsberg, 
with  the  more  usual  hypothesis  of  an  allegory, 
and  judge  for  themselves  of  its  reasonableness. 
Whichever  view  is  preferred,  or  even  both  if 
there    be   warrant   for   both    in    the    recognized 

3  The  meaning  is  obscure,  but  may  be  reasonably  inferred  from  tbe 
usage  of  the  poem  in  making  a  vineyard  or  garden  and  its  fruits  represen- 
tatives of  a  person  and  his  pleasures.  Compare  chap.  1:6;  4: 12-16  ;  6:  2. 
Solomon's  garden  is  therefore  his  royal  state  and  equipage  as  it  came  to 
Baal-hamon,  near  Shunem.  His  officers  and  ladies  are  its  keepers,  minis- 
tering to  his  pleasures,  each  their  share,  viz.,  luxuries  of  all  sorts,  money, 
Avines,  rich  garments,  perfumes,  and  women.  These  are  his  thousand 
silver  shekels.  In  contrast  with  his  splendor,  she  had  only  one  little 
vineyard,  but  it  was  her  own,  and  its  fruits  could  not  be  bought.  Let 
Solomon  have  his  luxuries  ;  let  his  courtiers  and  women  share  in  them, 
each  according  to  their  deserts  ;  enough  for  her  that  she  was  free  and  at 
liberty  to  give  her  affections  as  she  pleased. 

2  These  words  of  the  lovers  are  apparently  a  playful  allusion  to  those 
spoken  by  them  when  last  together  here,  at  the  time  of  their  separation 
(Ch.  2: 14-17).  He  addressed  her  then  as  dwelling  in  the  mountain  cliffs  ; 
now  she  is  in  the  gardens  of  freedom.  Then  the  "companions,"  her 
brothers,  overheard  them,  and  frowned  upon  her  ;  now  they  hear  her, 
and  approve.  He  asks  then  anew,  as  before,  "Let  me  hear  thy  voice," 
and  her  reply  is  the  same,  with  one  significant  variation.  She  then  bade 
him  wander  as  a  lonely  hart  on  the  mountains  of  Separation;  she  now 
bids  him  speed  exultingly  to  the  mountains  of  sweet  Spices  !  Does  there 
need  to  be  an  interpreter  of  her  meaning  ? 


144  our  father's  book. 

laws  of  interpretation,  is  sufficient  to  make  this 
book  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  volume  of  God's 
Word.  If  for  ourselves  we  give  our  preference 
to  the  former,  it  is  solely  because  it  seems  to 
us  best  to  accord  with  the  rules  which  should 
govern  us  in  the  exposition  of  all  parts  of  the 
sacred  volume.  At  the  same  time,  neither  view 
necessarily  excludes  the  other.  We  may  suggest 
upon  either  hypothesis  some  of  the  divine  lessons 
taught  us  herein. 

1.  Take  the  primary  sense  of  a  love  poem.  We 
have  here,  first,  a  delineation  of  a  simple,  natural, 
mutual  affection,  such  as  God,  our  Father,  and  the 
author  of  our  being,  inspires.  It  has  sprung  up  in 
appropriate  circumstances  between  two  young 
hearts  of  like  age,  outward  condition,  occupations, 
and  tastes.  It  is  pure  in  its  origin  and  in  its 
desires.  Not  a  taint  of  mercenariness,  unholy  ambi- 
tion, or  sensuality  denies  it.  It  inspires,  refines, 
and  elevates  their  whole  characters.  It  idealizes 
life  and  the  world,  and  throws  over  all  the  work 
and  care  and  monotony  of  this  earthly  existence 
a  halo  of  poetry.  In  the  words  of  its  own  beau- 
tiful eulogy :  — 

"  Strong  as  death  is  love, 
Unrelenting  as  Sheol  is  jealousy ; 
Its  brands  are  brands  of  fire, 
A  lightning  flash  from  Jehovah. 
Waters  many  cannot  extinguish  love, 
Nor  rivers  overwhelm  it. 
If  a  man  would  give  all  his  riches  for  love, 
With  scorn  should  he  be  scorned." 


THE  DIVINE  MEANING  DISCERNED.  145 

Side  by  side  with  this  pure  affection,  and  in 
direct  hostility  to  it,  is  pictured  another  of  a 
different  sort.  A  king,  rich,  powerful,  voluptuous, 
has  captured  one  of  these  young  lovers,  and  seeks 
to  add  her  a  willing  inmate  to  his  harem.  He 
offers  her  jewels  and  silks  and  perfumes.  He  causes 
her  to  ride  in  splendor  in  his  royal  processions. 
He  employs  the  bedizened  ladies  of  his  court,  poor 
victims  of  his  sensuality,  to  sing  to  her  his  praises, 
and,  if  possible,  seduce  her  to  be  one  like  them- 
selves. He  loads  her  with  flatteries  and  caresses. 
He  will  set  her  above  princesses  and  queens.  But 
all  is  in  vain.  The  simple  village  girl,  strong  in 
her  constancy  and  fidelity,  repels  all  his  endeavors. 
Standing  before  him  in  the  dignity  of  injured 
innocence,  her  sweet,  severe  countenance,  he  con- 
fesses, tef  rifies  him,  — 

"  Fair  as  the  moon,  clear  as  the  sun, 
And  formidable  as  bannered  hosts." 

At  length,  just  when  our  hearts  begin  to  ache 
for  her,  both  in  sympathy  for  her  trial,  and  through 
fear  lest  she  will  not  prove  strong  enough  to  hold 
out,  she  reaps  the  reward  of  her  constancy.  The 
good-natured  monarch  relents ;  she  is  "in  his  eyes 
as  one  that  found  favor."  She  is  dismissed  from 
the  palace,  and,  rejoining  her  lover,  crowns  his 
fidelity  as  well  as  her  own  with  a  union  upon 
which  we  instinctively  feel  the  blessing  of  the 
Lord  will  rest. 


146  our  father's  book. 

Now  we  submit  that  the  two  lessons  thus  taught 
are  worthy  of  God  to  teach,  and  most  needful  for 
mankind  to  learn.  Marriage,  as  he  appointed  it, 
is  the  first  of  all  institutions,  and  the  most  funda- 
mental to  the  happiness  and  purity  of  mankind. 
Marriage  perverted,  debased  by  worldliness,  sen- 
suality, and  oppression,  has  been  in  all  ages  a  most 
fruitful  source  of  sin  and  woe.  One  of  the  first 
evidences  that  man  had  fallen  from  his  primeval 
state  was  that  he  began  to  oppress  woman,  and 
from  the  days  of  Lamech,  the  first  polygamist,  to 
Sultan  Aziz  and  Brigham  Young,  the  annals  of 
that  foul  wrong  have  continued  to  defile  human 
history.  Can  any  divine  word  of  command  or 
counsel  intended  to  repress  this  awful  wrong,  and 
teach  mankind  the  true  idea  of  God's  primal  insti- 
tution, and  of  that  sacred  affection  which  gives  it 
its  strength  and  purity,  be  unneeded  or  out  of 
place  in  his  holy  Book  ? 

Let  this  divine  poem,  cleared  of  its  obscurity, 
and  made  to  utter  distinctly  its  true  instruction, 
be  read  alongside  of  that  shameful  record  of  the 
debauchery  of  Solomon  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of 
1  Kings.  May  we  not  see  a  reason  why  such  a 
book  should  have  been  then  written  and  given  to 
the  Hebrew  people?  The  splendor  of  the  great 
king  had  been  the  wonder  of  the  world.  He  was 
the  visible  earthly  head  of  the  kingdom  of  Jeho- 
vah. And  such  a  head  !  On  that  marble-crowned 
summit  of  Moriah  Was  the  temple  which  Solomon 


THE   DIVINE   MEANING   DISCERNED.  147 

had  built  and  dedicated  to  Jehovah,  most  Holy. 
And  there  beside  it  was  Solomon's  own  house, 
the  lawful  mistress  of  which  was  Solomon's 
queen,  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh.  Somewhere, 
too,  near  by  was  that  other  establishment  filled 
with  "  women  of  the  Moabites,  Ammonites,  Edom- 
ites,  Zidonians,  and  Hittites,"  "  seven  hundred 
wives,  princesses,  and  three  hundred  concubines." 
Now,  one  reason  why  many  think  it  impossible 
for  Solomon  to  have  written  this  Song  is  found 
in  just  these  facts.  Would  he  have  suffered  the 
virtuous  young  Shulamite  to  escape  in  the  way 
here  intimated?  And  if  he  did,  would  he  be 
likely  to  have  written  out  the  story  of  his  defeat 
and  shame,  to  be  quoted  against  him  in  all  time 
to  come?  Much  more  probably  was  the  poem 
written  a  little  later,  by  some  prophet  in  the  spirit 
of  Nathan,  who  reproved  David  for  his  sins,  in 
order  to  teach  the  church,  and  especially  the 
young,  that  Solomon's  establishment  was  not  an 
ideal  one  for  domestic  happiness,  —  that  better  a 
simple  cottage  under  the  apple-tree  in  the  coun- 
try, with  one  true,  faithful,  loving  heart  to  share 
it,  than  all  the  glory  and  guilt  of  the  most  exalted 
monarch. 

And  even  in  our  own  day,  what  more  salutary 
or  needful  instructions  can  be  taught,  especially  to 
the  young,  than  those  which  we  have  ventured  to 
suggest  as  included  in  the  primary  intent  of  this 
sacred  book  ?   What  mother  could  ask  for  her  son, 


148  our  father's  book. 

about  leaving  home  to  encounter  the  temptations 
of  a  city,  wiser  counsels  than  those  here  imparted  ? 
Monastic  habits  are  not  practicable  nor  desirable. 
The  young  of  both  sexes  are  made  for  society.  It 
is  in  this  that  the  inspired  maxim  becomes  emi- 
nently wise  and  true,  "  Keep  thy  heart  with  all 
diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life." 
Amid  the  allurements  which  gayet}>r  and  fashion 
and  pleasure  hold  out,  let  them  never  forget  the 
charms  of  simplicity  and  purity,  guided  by  the 
fear  and  love  of  God.  There  are  no  sweeter 
songs  than  those  which  were  sung  three  thousand 
years  ago  between  two  young,  pure,  constant 
hearts  on  the  hills  of  Palestine,  "  My  beloved  is 
mine,  and  I  am  his." 

2.  If  now  we  revert  to  the  other  theory  named 
as  to  the  interpretation  of  this  book,  we  shall  find 
our  way  not  a  little  facilitated  by  the  view  ahead}7 
presented.  A  theory  so  ancient,  and  consecrated 
by  the  faith  and  devotion  of  the  church  for  so 
many  ages,  even  though  it  be  not  in  strict  accord 
with  our  latest  exegetical  science,  is  certainly  to 
be  regarded  with  profound  respect. 

This  theory  supposes  that  the  personages  which 
are  mentioned  in  the  song  typify  the  Lord  and 
his  people.  One  of  the  chief  difficulties,  however, 
in  carrying  through  the  allegory  consistently  has 
commonly  arisen  from  assuming  that  there  is  but 
one  who  claims  the  affections  of  the  Shulamite,  — 
or  in  other  words,  that  the  king  and  the  shepherd- 


THE   DIVINE   MEANING  DISCERNED.  149 

lover  are  the  same  person,  representing  Jehovah 
under  the  old  dispensation,  and  Christ  under  the 
new.  Says  Kitto's  Cyclopaedia:  "What  is  most 
subversive  of  the  allegorical  theory  is  the  fact 
that  three  principal  persons  appear  in  this  Song, 
—  viz.,  a  shepherd,  a  shepherdess,  and  a  king,  and 
that  it  is  the  shepherd  and  not  the  king  who 
is  the  object  of  the  maiden's  affection.  This  has 
been  recognized  by  some  of  the  most  learned  Jew- 
ish commentators  of  the  middle  ages,  —  viz.,  Ibn 
Ezra,  Immanuel,  etc.,  —  and  must  be  evident  to 
every  unbiased  reader  of  the  Song  of  songs." 

To  remove  this  difficulty,  then,  we  need  to  in- 
troduce three  correspondent  persons  into  the  alle- 
gory. If  the  shepherd  and  shepherdess  represent 
Christ  and  his  church,  we  need  only  suppose  that 
the  king  who  would  seduce  her  from  her  allegiance 
represents  the  prince  of  this  world  employing  his 
temptations  to  detach  her  from  her  constancy  to 
her  betrothed.  Thus  viewed,  the  allegory  becomes 
simple  and  effective.  The  church,  though  solemnly 
espoused  to  her  Lord,  is  nevertheless  in  the  terri- 
tories of  his  rival,  the  world.  She  longs  for  the 
society  and  the  affections  of  Christ,  but  she  must 
remain  here,  subject  not  only  to  the  power  of  the 
world,  but  to  the  blandishments  which  the  people 
of  the  world  exert  to  draw  her  with  them. 
Worldly  glory  assails  her,  —  the  lust  of  the  flesh, 
the  lust  of  the  eye,  and  the  pride  of  life.  She  is 
flattered  and  caressed ;  she  is  promised  riches  and 


150  OUR  father's  book. 

glory.  But  all  is  in  vain.  Invincible  in  her  love 
for  her  Lord,  she  resists  all  these  inducements, 
with  her  triumphant  song,  "  My  Beloved  is  mine, 
and  I  am  his."  At  last  the  Tempter  retires  baf- 
fled, and  the  Saviour,  in  reward  of  her  constancy, 
receives  her  into  a  more  intimate  union  here,  which 
is  consummated  and  perfected  on  the  resplendent 
hills  of  rejoicing  in  heaven. 

It  will  not  be  difficult,  for  those  who  know  what 
the  love  and  fellowship  of  Christ  is  to  a  soul  which 
has  betrothed  itself  to  him,  to  carry  out  the  analo- 
gies suggested  in  this  Song.  We  might  cite  the 
testimonies  of  many  who,  in  the  overflow  of  their 
hearts,  have  poured  forth  the  utterances  of  their 
love.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  Fenelon,  Madame  Guion, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  Baxter,  Edwards,  Payson,  and  a 
thousand  more,  have  left  us  songs  as  sweet,  and 
set  to  the  same  tune  as  this  ancient  Song  of  songs. 
To  such  as  they  no  word  of  ours  will  be  needed  to 
show  us  the  divine  in  this  book.  Said  Rabbi 
Akaba:  "No  man  in  Israel  ever  doubted  the 
canonicity  of  the  Song  of  songs,  for  the  course  of 
ages  cannot  vie  with  the  day  on  which  this  Song 
was  given  to  Israel.  All  the  Kethubim  (sacred 
writings)  are,  indeed,  a  holy  thing,  but  the  Song 
of  songs  is  a  Holy  of  Holies." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

RECAPITULATION. 

We  subjoin  at  the  close  of  this  discussion  a 
brief  review  of  the  argument,  in  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent order  from  that  which  was  followed  in  the 
preceding  pages. 

Taking,  first,  the  Old  Testament,  we  showed 
that  it  existed  nearly  in  the  form  in  which  we 
now  have  it,  in  the  time  of  our  Saviour,  and  that 
it  was  used  by  him,  and  declared  in  many  ways 
and  times  to  be  the  Word  of  God.  Indeed,  he 
founded  his  own  mission  and  claims  as  the  Messiah 
upon  its  predictions,  and  commanded  his  disciples 
to  search  it  as  a  witness  that  testified  of  him.  All, 
therefore,  that  accept  his  authority  must  receive 
the  inspiration  of  the  ancient  Scriptures  as  among 
the  first  Christian  truths. 

The  same  fact  was  asserted  with  like  directness 
and  frequency  by  the  apostles.  Everywhere, 
when  they  went  forth  to  proclaim  the  gospel  of 
salvation,  they  based  it  upon  the  teachings  of  the 
Scriptures,  "  opening  and  alleging  that  the  Christ 
must  needs  have  suffered,  and  that  this  Jesus 
whom  they  preached  was  the  Christ." 

151 


152  OUR  father's  book. 

Starting,  then,  from  this  well-attested  fact,  we 
look  into  the  Book  itself  to  observe  its  history  and 
origin.  The  growth  of  the  various  writings  which 
composed  it  into  a  definite  collection,  called  the 
Canon  of  the  Old  Testament,  was  gradual,  and  was 
not  fully  completed  until  at  or  very  near  the 
Christian  era.  The  precise  stages  of  this  process 
we  cannot  assign,  it  having  been  gradual  and 
spontaneous,  like  all  living  growths,  and  therefore 
leaving  no  formal  record  of  itself  in  history.  The 
fact  of  such  process  we  have  assured  to  us  by  the 
result,  the  book  as  it  is ;  and  the  divine  superin- 
tendence which  made  it  the  Book  of  God,  by  the 
testimony  already  adduced  of  Jesus  and  the  apos- 
tles declaring  it  to  be  such. 

The  Book  so  made  up  and  so  authenticated  to 
us,  —  the  Book  which  was  Christ's  own  Bible,  we 
have  designated  as  Our  Father's  Book.  And  this 
authentication  extends,  by  its  very  nature,  to  all 
the  constituent  parts.  The  father  who  presents 
to  his  son  a  birthday  volume  or  library  for  his  in- 
struction gives  him  all  that  it  contains.  That  son 
does  not  need  to  trouble  himself  about  the  sources 
from  which  it  was  obtained.  He  need  not  inquire 
who  were  its  authors,  what  sort  of  men  they  were, 
when  or  where  they  lived,  or  any  other  fact  per- 
taining to  their  personality.  Some  of  them  may 
be  wholly  unknown.  They  may  have  written 
originally  for  some  purpose  of  their  own  without 
any  forethought  of  the  use  which  would  afterward 


RECAPITULATION.  153 

be  made  of  their  writings.  They  may  have  de- 
rived their  materials  from  original  sources,  or  they 
may  have  used  what  had  first  been  employed  by 
others.  We  do  not  mean  that  all  these  points  are 
without  interest  or  importance,  and  worthy  of  being 
inquired  into,  but  simply  a  full  knowledge  of 
them  is  not  essential  to  the  authority  of  the  book. 
That  authority  is  derived  from  the  father's  own 
acts  in  selecting  and  presenting  the  work.  He 
knew  their  origin  and  characteristics,  and  his  gift 
of  them  is  all  the  imprimatur  they  need. 

This  view  of  the  case  shows  how  little  occasion 
for  alarm  or  anxiety  there  is  in  consequence  of 
recent  critical  discussions  as  to  the  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch  and  other  Old  Testament  books. 
They  who  claim  that  Moses  did  not  personally 
write  the  five  that  bear  his  name,  but  that  they 
were  compiled  and  edited  at  a  much  later  date,  out 
of  fragmentary  materials  coming  down  from  him 
in  the  way  of  tradition,  etc.,  do  not  therefore  im- 
peach their  truth  or  their  divine  authority.  The 
learned  and  pious  men  of  the  Jewish  church, 
priests  and  prophets,  scribes  and  magistrates,  who 
lived  in  the  centuries  following  Moses,  had  oppor- 
tunities for  knowing  the  facts,  and  their  action  in 
accepting  these  books  is  sufficient  evidence  of  their 
genuineness.  Suppose  five  hundred  years  hence  a 
question  could  arise  as  to  the  origin  and  authority 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  would 
not  an  historian  of  that  day  point  to  the  fact  of  its 


154  our  father's  book. 

actual  adoption  by  the  several  states  within  a 
brief  period  following  as  conclusive,  even  though 
the  records  of  the  Convention  that  framed  it  were 
lost?  So  with  all  critical  discussions  of  like  char- 
acter. They  no  more  affect  the  divine  authority 
of  the  Book,  than  a  question  as  to  the  authorship 
of  the  Imitation  of  Christ,  or  whether  it  was  bought 
in  New  York  or  London,  would  affect  the  question 
of  its  genuineness  or  value  as  a  portion  of  the 
father's  gift. 

We  dwelt  at  much  length  upon  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  Sacred  Writings,  upon  their  variety  of 
composition  and  of  style,  and  their  adaptations  to 
persons  of  all  ages  and  capacities,  and  in  all  peri- 
ods of  the  world.  We  showed  how  these  qualities 
increased  their  intelligibleness,  their  interest  for 
all  classes,  and  their  power  to  move  the  heart. 
They  are  in  all  these  things  precisely  in  the  manner 
of  a  wise  father's  instructions  for  his  children,  and 
are  themselves  among  the  most  clearly  marked 
evidences  that  they  came  from  the  source  of  all 
wisdom  and  goodness. 

We  referred  also  to  the  principles  which  should 
aid  us  in  distinguishing  between  what  is  divine 
and  human  in  this  Book,  or,  in  other  words,  in 
discerning  the  divine  in  the  human.  The  one 
test  which  is  to  be  employed,  and  which  is  suffi- 
cient to  guide  us  safely,  is  to  ask  what  the  Booh 
means.  Thus  in  Job,  the  divine  thought  is  not  to 
be  found  in  what  Eliphaz,  or  Zophar,  or  Bildad, 


RECAPITULATION.  155 

or  Elihu,  or  even  Job  himself  says,  —  for  they 
were  all  wrong  on  the  main  question  in  dispute, 
and  were  reproved  by  the  Lord  for  darkening 
counsel  by  words  without  knowledge  —  but  in 
what  the  work  as  a  whole  is  designed  to  teach, 
viz. :  the  inscrutable  sovereignty  of  God's  Provi- 
dence over  mankind,  and  the  duty  of  men  to  be 
humble,  submissive,  and  obedient,  and  to  wait  for 
a  full  understanding  of  it  till  it  can  be  read  in  the 
light  of  a  better  world. 

In  respect  to  the  New  Testament,  our  remarks 
scarcely  need  a  recapitulation.  The  result  of  the 
whole  discussion  we  earnestly  hope  will  be  to 
confirm  all  who  have  read  it  in  a  clear  and  stead- 
fast faith  in  this  Book  as  the  Word  of  God,  which 
worketh  effectually  in  all  them  that  believe.  We 
hope  the  young,  especially,  will  see  that  the  de- 
mand made  upon  their  faith  is  not  without  war- 
rant. There  is  much  aggressive  skepticism  abroad 
in  our  day.  There  are  daily  assaults  upon  the 
Bible  by  those  who  are  hostile  to  it,  from  the 
learned  agnosticism,  which  makes  it  a  merit  to 
"know  nothing,"  to  the  coarse  blasphemy  of  Inger- 
sollism,  but  they  have  done  no  more  to  shake  the 
foundations  of  God's  Word  than  the  storms  and 
the  waves  of  the  Atlantic  to  disturb  the  eternal 
calm  of  the  profound  ocean  depths.  Despite  all 
the  pretensions  of  its  foes,  it  remains  true  still,  and 
never  more  so  than  to-day,  that  the  world9 8  intel- 
lect bows  to  the  authority  of  the  Bible. 


BOOKS  ON  THE  BIBLE. 


I. 

OLD  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM. 

THE  HISTORICAL  VALUE  OF  THE  FIRST  ELEVEN 
CHAPTERS  OF  GENESIS; 

WITH  SOME  DISCUSSION  OF  THE  NEW  CRITICISM. 

By  Rev.  D.  N.  BEACH. 

WITH  AjY  INTRODUCTION 

By  EDWIN  B.  WEBB,  D.D. 

Pages  xx,  66 Price,  75  cents. 


II. 

INSPIRATION. 

THE    DIVINE   AUTHORITY    OF   THE    BIBLE. 

By  Prof.  G.  FREDERICK  WRIGHT. 

Pages  241 >    .   Price,  ^1.25. 


III. 

THE  BIBLE  VIEWED  PRACTICALLY. 

OUR    FATHER'S    BOOK. 

Bv  I.  P.  WARREN.  D.D. 


*#*  These  books  are  independent  each  of  the  others,  but,  in  virtue  of 
their  subject-matter,  constitute  a  natural  series. 


JUST  PUBLISHED  BY 


Congregational  Sunday-School  and  Publishing  Society,  Boston. 


SABBATH  ESSAYS. 


WORK  OF  PERMANENT  VALUE  ON  A  THEME 
OF   VITAL   IMPORTANCE. 

Price,  $1.50. 

As  a  treatise  on  the  Sabbath,  designed  to  meet  all  ordinary 
inquiries  on  the  subject,  it  will  be  invaluable  to  Pastors,  Sabbath- 
School  Teachers,  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  It  is  the  most 
valuable  contribution  recently  made  to  the  literature  on  the  Sabbath 
question. 

The  book  contains  thirty-eight  essays  and  addresses,  discussing 
the  Sabbath  in  thirty-eight  different  aspects  and  relations.  The 
essays  are  divided  into  sections,  as  follows:  "The  Sabbath  in 
Nature,"  "  The  Sabbath  in  the  Word  of  God,"  "  The  Sabbath  in 
History,"  "The  Sabbath  in  the  State  and  in  Society."  The 
addresses  follow,  twelve  in  number,  most  of  them  on  practical 
questions  of  Sabbath  observance.  A  Historical  Sketch  on  Sabbath 
Conventions  closes  the  volume.  The  views  of  some  of  the  foremost 
men  of  all  the  evangelical  denominations  are  here  brought  together, 
presenting  this  great  subject  on  all  sides,  furnishing  a  discussion 
that  seems  complete,  and  making  the  volume  an  invaluable  text- 
book on  the  Sabbath  question. 

For  Sale  by  all  Booksellers,  or  sent,  post-paid,  on 
receipt  of  price,  by 

Congregational  Publishing  Society,  Boston. 

GEO.  P.  SMITH,  Agent. 


THE 


DIVIDE  AUTHORITY  OF  ip  BIBLE. 

By  G.  FREDERICK  WRIGHT, 

TROFESSOR  IN  OBERLIN  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 

Pp.241.    5J£X3>4  inches.    Boston:   Congregational  Sunday-School 
and  Publishing  Society.     1884.    $1.25. 


Professor  Wright  has  done  a  timely  and  helpful  work  in  this 
compact  volume.  The  title  sufficiently  indicates  the  purpose, 
namely,  to  set  forth  the  authority,  and  that  the  Divine  authority,  of 
the  Bible,  that  is,  of  our  canonical  Scriptures  as  a  whole.  This 
involves  the  brief  presentation  of  the  subsidiary  topics  of  Inspira- 
tion, the  Canon,  the  true  method  of  Interpretation,  the  Difficulties 
and  Objections;  and  some  considerations  of  textual  criticism,  of 
alleged  discrepancies,  of  Old  Testament  quotations,  of  the  harmony 
of  the  Bible  with  science,  and  of  the  less  directly  spiritual  portions 
of  the  book  —  all  properly  subordinate  to  the  main  discussion. 

The  argument  is  inductive,  proceeding  by  an  appeal  to  facts, 
and  not  from  preconceived  theories.  It  is  also  clear  and  concise, 
establishing  its  positions,  and  illustrating  them  by  specimen  instan- 
ces, rather  than  by  exhaustive  and  therefore  exhausting  enumer- 
ation. The  main  postulate  from  which  the  writer  proceeds  is  "  the 
acknowledged  supernatural  character  of  Christianity,"  in  which 
"the  stupendous  miracle  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ"  is  "the 
corner-stone "  of  our  historic  faith,  easily  supporting  whatever 
other  supernatural  claims  and  utterances  can  be  shown  to  have 
been  put  forth  by  that  wonderful  personage.  ...  It  is  a  very 
clear,  though  succinct,  statement  of  the  valid  reasons  why  we  re- 
ceive our  present  Scriptures,  and  receive  them  as  a  final  authority 
on  all  matters  on  which  they  profess  authoritatively  to  speak.  . 
.  .  .  The  volume  is  brief  enough  and  clear  enough  to  be  readily 
followed,  and  will  at  the  present  time,  we  are  persuaded,  prove 
highly  useful  and  helpful. — Bib.  Sac,  Oct.,  1884. 


SEND  ORDERS  TO 

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1 


BS538  .W28 

Our  Father's  book,  or,  The  Divine  origin 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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